2023 CLOUD AGM 19 October 2023 Minutes and Reports

Newsbrief 105 2 November 2023

CLOUD : 2023 ANNUAL GENERAL MEETING

1. Summary of Meeting

2. Links to AGM Minutes and Chair & Treasurer Reports

3. Other Relevant Reports

1. Summary of Meeting

The outgoing Management Committee was re-elected. Tom Wilkinson, CLOUD Chair, reported on the main events of the last year which were (no surprise!) the suspension of the M6 link road scheme by Lancashire County Council and the decision by Lancaster City Council to cease work on the South Lancaster Area Action Plan and to undertake instead a review of the existing Local Plan.

What emerges from all this remains to be seen. It’s significant that the City Council acted swiftly after the May 2023 local elections to commission a review of Local Plan options and that this report reached the Council Cabinet as early as September. We should take heart that Cabinet didn’t go for the least change option of continuing with the Lancaster South Area Action Plan - and good riddance to that! A full Local Plan review, as now underway, is a major undertaking and not constrained by the decisions in the current plan. The Cabinet recognised new factors not covered by the existing Local Plan such as the Eden Project, provision of a new hospital (on a site yet to be determined), reuse of the present RLI site, Canal Corridor development, as well as enabling a district wide review of residential development. Here the critical wording is “to provide the opportunity to evolve the strategic vision of residential development within the wider district” - that is to look more widely than just the Bailrigg garden village site and south Lancaster. The timescale for the review is to have it ready for public hearings by a Planning Inspector in mid 2025 and this is recognised as a challenging deadline.

As some CLOUD members will be all too well aware, Lancashire County Council issued letters in November 2021 to residents in a broad area of south Lancaster requiring them to complete a land interest questionnaire. This was the first step towards the possible compulsory purchase of properties to clear the way for the M6 link road and Bailrigg garden village. No compulsory purchase notices have been issued, but neither have the questionnaires been abandoned or rescinded. Email correspondence on this subject between CLOUD and Lancashire County County culminated in this reply from County Councillor Riggott:

Dear Mr Breakell

South Lancaster to M6 Project

Thank you for your further email dated 18 September 2023, regarding the south Lancaster to M6 transport project. I note your disappointment with my earlier response, and I do understand your concern. However, one important matter that I must clarify is that the scheme has not been abandoned at this point in time. Rather work has been suspended in order that the county council, working with the city council, can re-evaluate the situation with the intention of developing new proposals for this part of south Lancaster.

For the moment, the scheme that the county council has identified would support the implementation of the adopted Lancaster Local Plan and it is right and proper that the county council continues to recognise its route as one that would enable it. This is a similar situation to other major infrastructure scheme proposals across Lancashire and represents an important stage towards the county council, as local transport and highway authority for the area, alongside the city council as local planning authority, working to safeguard a route from other development or designation that might render it undeliverable.

In terms of setting an approximate timescale for new transport plans to be drafted, this will be heavily influenced by the city council as the local planning authority. You will be aware that Lancaster City Council held a Cabinet meeting in September 2023 to agree a full review of the Local Plan. The city council has published a timetable for submission of the Local Plan to the Secretary of State in June 2025. This timeframe will include provision for statutory public consultation. Decisions over the scale and location of new housing and employment sites will form part of the city council's deliberations during this period, including consideration of what infrastructure will be necessary to support new development sites and whether development is viable and deliverable in those circumstances. We will work with the city council during this process to inform the transport plan that will support the Local Plan. In addition to the public consultation that will form an important part of the local plan-making process, I assure you that, as before, if this or a new scheme is brought forward we will follow the same process and engage with the local community and stakeholders on the options and design of a preferred scheme before a planning application is submitted, so there will be ample opportunity for local residents to register views throughout the plan-making and application process.

I am grateful for your invitation to meet, however at this moment in time I do not think there is any more information that I am able to share in this matter.

The county council does hold a list of people who have requested to be kept informed of the scheme. I have asked officers to ensure that you are included on that list, which we will use to contact people when there is further news on the scheme. I hope this information is helpful.

Yours sincerely County Councillor Aidy Riggott

Cabinet Member for Economic Development & Growth

While this uncertainty around compulsory purchase is clearly unwelcome, this is where matter rest at present. Lancaster City Council’s Local Plan review will be the crucial determinant of where future housing is to be located and hence what infrastructure is needed and where.

The AGM agreed that CLOUD should seek effective and early consultation on the new Local Plan. We noted that genuine consultation with local residents is what was absent during the preparation of the previous Local Plan. This reached appalling depths with the master-planning exercise by JTP Consultants in 2020/21 which generated a protest petition with over 700 signatures and an address to full Council by CLOUD. Councillors, acting in defiance of the bland response proposed by officers at that occasion, assured CLOUD that proper responses with explanations as to the reasoning behind decisions would be provided. The AGM agreed that we should seek this sort of response from the newly elected Council on the Local Plan review which has now started. The Management Committee will take this forward and report back to members.

1. Links to AGM Minutes and Chair & Treasurer Reports

AGM Minutes

Chair’s Report

Treasurer’s Report

1. Other Relevant Reports

Here are 2 reports which make interesting reading and confirm CLOUD’s long-standing reservations about the suspect costings for the M6 link road:

• The Engineer magazine recently carried this article on the Housing Infrastructure Fund - this is the government fund which had offered a contribution towards the link road costs. This funding has now been withdrawn, leading to the road scheme being suspended. One of our members has described this as a ‘Lucky Escape’!

• A report on link road costs associated with the Housing Infrastructure Fund bid was delivered to Lancashire County Cabinet on 7 September 2023. See p.98 under item 5.09 - (Public Pack)Agenda Document for Cabinet, 07/09/202 under Economic Development. This is the relevant section:

Whilst work was expected to ramp up on the South Lancaster Growth Catalyst over the year, it became apparent that the approach to collection of developer contributions required to fund the delivery of the wider programme was an issue. This was coupled with inflationary pressures on the main schemes which, with fixed grant contributions, meant the reliance on developer contributions was greater. The reassessment of the programme, delivery timescales and grant funding deadlines meant that delivery of the programme was too risky for partners to undertake and forced the decision to withdraw from the HIF programme. This has meant that the delivery programme expected both in 2022/23 and in later years will now not take place. Partners are working to develop a programme that could support housing delivery in south Lancaster requiring a much reduced risk to the public purse, with timing of delivery more aligned to the developer contributions that will be needed to fund it.