Agenda item

(1)          The District and Borough Councils consulted KCC as a statutory consultee at the formal consultation stages in pursuance of Regulation 18 (Issue and Options and Preferred Options) and Regulation 19 (Pre submission) of The Town and Country Planning (Local Planning) (England) Regulations 2012.  The Planning Policy Team co-ordinated the KCC response by consulting internally with officers, members of the EHW Committee and KCC Local Members, who represented wards in the relevant Borough or District to ensure their views were provided to the Cabinet Member for consideration when making KCC’s response to each Local Authority. An overview of KCC’s response for all three of the Local Plans consultations was set out in the report.

(2)          The report summarised KCC representations on the following Local Plan consultation documents:-

Canterbury City Council Local Plan Preferred Options (June – Aug 2013)

The City Council proposed that a minimum of 15,600 dwellings would be built over the plan period 2011-2031.  The Local Plan also included 118,000 sq m of business space on eight strategic sites and proposed that the Wincheap Retail Area would be developed as a satellite centre of Canterbury City, focused on retail and leisure provision.

Thanet District Council Local Plan Issues and Options consultation (July – Aug 2013)

TDC were at an earlier stage of the Local Plan process and considered three job growth options ranging from a Lower Growth option of 1,200 jobs, an economic baseline based on historic trends of 3,100 jobs and a Higher Growth scenario of 5,100 jobs.  TDC had taken a similar approach to housing and matching that to job growth to produce a series of scenarios including zero migration of 3,714 homes and trend migration up to 11,648 homes.  Manston Airport was considered separately, and could provide an additional 2,420 jobs.  The Plan aimed to strengthen and diversify the local economy and focus investment at the coastal towns and at Westwood.

Swale Borough Councils Local Plan Preferred Options consultation (Aug – Sept 2013)

SBC planned to keep its housing target at 540 dwellings per annum leading to a housing target of 10,800 dwellings for the years 2010/11 – 2031.  Sittingbourne continued to be the main focus for development and concentration of public services and facilities.  The Plan provided employment land targets of 545,614m² floorspace and 7053 jobs (353 per annum) between 2011 and 2031.  Kent Science Park, Sheerness Port and the Sittingbourne Southern Relief Road were identified as “Areas of Future Change” which could trigger a partial review of the Local Plan.

(3)       The decisions to be taken by Canterbury City Council might have long term financial implications for KCC as the provider of infrastructure and services to support development.   Thanet District and Swale Borough were both at an earlier stage in their processes and as such there would be no direct financial implications for the County Council from decisions taken at that part of their process.

(4)       RESOLVED that the representations submitted from KCC by the Cabinet Member for Environment and Transport as set out and summarised in the report be noted.