Agenda item

Toby Forbes Turner, Planning Policy Manager:

a.    presented the Central Lincolnshire Local Plan (CLLP) Consultation Draft to brief Members and to note the formal response on behalf of the Council.

b.    advised that the next version of the CLLP had been produced for public consultation starting 30^th June to 24^th August. Once adopted the CLLP would replace the current Local Plan which was adopted in April 2017.

c.    explained that there were 83 policies contained within the Draft Plan with key policies including those relating to climate change, housing, biodiversity, retail and employment.

d.    further advised that following this round of consultation the Draft Plan would be subject to one further round of statutory consultation prior to being submitted to the Planning Inspectorate for public examinations which was estimated to take please in early 2022 with the plan hopefully adopted later in 2022.

e.    explained that the structure of the Consultation Draft Local Plan had changed from the current Local Plan and was now thematic for ease of reading and navigation by users.

f.     advised that the new draft Local Plan included a number of areas of substantial change from the plan adopted in 2017 and detailed the following key areas of change:

·         Housing Requirement

·         Settlement Hierarchy and site allocations

·         Retail Hierarchy

·         Climate Change

g.    highlighted the key policies of interest for Lincoln:

·         Affordable Housing including First Homes

·         Employment

·         Retail including Lincoln City Centre

·         Accessibility and Transport

·         Parking Standards

·         Historic Environment

·         Natural Environment / Biodiversity/ Trees

·         Sustainable Urban Extensions and Regeneration and Opportunity Areas in Lincoln

·         Lincoln Housing Allocations

·         Consultation Process

h.    explained that following the consultation, all comments would be scrutinised and considered and the plan would be amended where needed. It would then be brought back for the approval of the Central Lincolnshire Joint Planning Committee before it was subject to a further statutory stage of consultation prior to the plan being submitted to the Secretary of State for examination.

i.      invited members questions and comments:

Question: Referred to paragraph 4.27 of the report regarding Affordable Housing and asked if the lower cap of £140k applied to just the affordable housing element or all housing in relation to the Western Growth Corridor.

Response: The concerns for affordable housing was understood, however, the plan needed to be deliverable in Lincoln and would be consistent across the County.

Question: Referred to the Central Lincolnshire adopted plan and asked how many of the 37k planned houses had been built.

Response: There had been a lot of changes since the adoption of the plan in 2014, the figure could be circulated following the meeting.

Comment: Expressed concern that 78.6% of housing in Lincoln was in Council Tax bands A and B, therefore the Council Tax remuneration would be fairly low.

Response: This would be a large area of development and a compromise was needed.

Comment: Lincoln City had a small amount of land to build on compared to other district councils in Lincolnshire, such as North Kesteven and West Lindsey and therefore it needed to be used wisely.

RESOLVED that

1.    the recommendation to provide broad support to the Draft Central Lincolnshire Local Plan be supported.

2.    the decision to request delegated authority to be given to Kieron Manning, Assistant Director for Planning for any final technical comments to be made on the Draft Local Plan prior to submission deadline of 24^th August 2021 be noted.