District Development Plan, Site Allocations & Neighbourhood Plans

With Stratford District Council’s ‘Core Strategy’ submitted for examination and approval by the Planning Inspectorate in September, the overall District Development Plan is a step closer to being in place. SDC need to show that they can deliver the required District-wide developments contained in the Core Strategy with sufficient, suitable, deliverable sites to be identified as realistic possibilities over the Plan Period (2011-2031).

As a means of demonstrating this SDC are preparing a ‘Site Allocations Plan’ (SAP):

• Looking across the District at sites which could have the potential to be developed
• Outside that accounted for in their specific ‘strategic sites’ (eg. Gaydon Lighthorne Heath) and numbers assigned to settlements already.
• Allocations that SDC still have a duty to demonstrate plans for achieving: c.2000 dwellings
• Potential sites for just under 20% of the District’s housing requirement
• Also identifying sites for employment and retail use that are not already specified.

Where a Neighbourhood Plan is actively progressing, SDC have stated clearly that they will be led by the Neighbourhood Plan for site allocations in that settlement. A Neighbourhood Plan can include site allocations, if any are identified as needed for delivery of the Town’s requirements under the Core Strategy. The Neighbourhood Plan community team, with the support of Shipston Town Council, have the intention of working towards an adopted Neighbourhood Plan that incorporates specifically outlined sites, if any are shown to be necessary in achieving these requirements.

The initial part of SDC’s SAP consultation and ‘call for sites’ closes on 2^nd October. SDC expect to issue a Draft SAP for consultation sometime in the Winter of 2014/2015 and submit a finalised SAP in Spring 2015. They plan for it to be examined and then adopted in Autumn/Winter 2015.

Shipston’s Neighbourhood Plan is not in a position to highlight specific sites for specific uses, or indeed if there is identified a definite need for any additional sites to deliver the Core Strategy requirements, in the starting ‘call for sites’. However, in the immediate months ahead, a two-way dialogue following the SDC-led starting point on the SAP process should allow the Neighbourhood Plan community team to collaboratively consider any sites put forward in Shipston, (either through the SAP process or directly to, or emerging from, the Neighbourhood Plan team) within the framework of the emerging Neighbourhood Plan proposals and policies. And subsequently – and very importantly – in the framework of the necessary public and stakeholder consultation.

Neighbourhood Plans are not a statutory undertaking, each Parish can decide whether it is the right choice for them. Where they are successfully “made” though, they will form part of the District’s statutory local development plan against which all planning applications and development proposals will be decided. Neighbourhood planning gives local communities the opportunity to plan for their local area and to have more input and control over development and land use in their community by producing a document that both delivers the requirements of their District, (and ultimately Central Government), and that reflects the input, thoughts and opinions of their residents, businesses, services [&] users – the community.