Newsbrief 70 21 June 2020
Summary
Planning Inspector’s Report on the Lancaster Local Plan
Garden Villages and Garden Towns Report
Making Representations at Virtual Planning Meetings
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As you may already have read, the Planning Inspector has finally issued his report on the Lancaster Local Plan and has declared it sound. You can access his report and the enthusiastic reception given to it by Councillor Hanson via the links in this Newsbrief.
For the full report go to Local Plan Examination and click the link marked View the Report to Lancaster City Council (PDF)
Janice Hansen’s press release on Local Plan report http://www.lancaster.gov.uk/news/2020/jun/inspector-backs-lancaster-city-council-s-local-plan
The Inspector's report gives the go-ahead to Bailrigg Garden Village - this is obviously a disappointing outcome, but not really a surprising one as any CLOUD member who attended last year’s hearings into the Local Plan will recognise. In normal circumstances we would now be arranging an urgent CLOUD general meeting so we could all discuss the issues and decide what our next steps should be. However, as we're all only too well aware, the coronavirus pandemic makes this impossible - and for the same reason we're also unable to hold a meeting of the CLOUD management committee.
We will issue a further Newsbrief when we've had time to look at the Inspector's report and consider what options we might have for the future. It may be that CLOUD's focus should now move to ensuring that the Council's implementation of the Plan takes place in the most sustainable way and with the least damage to the environment and the fabric of the town and its setting. We also need to consider how CLOUD should respond to the Council’s declared intention to review the Plan with regard to the Climate Emergency and with it the South Lancaster Area Action Plan. It is important to remember that this is an ongoing journey rather than the end of the road. In the meantime, we would welcome any comments and suggestions from CLOUD members as to what we might do.
2 Garden Villages and Garden Towns report
Transport for New Homes, entitled Garden Villages and Garden Towns: Visions and Reality.
This report received coverage on the BBC https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-53050801
Transport for New Homes examined plans for 20 Garden Communities, including Bailrigg Garden Village in detail, as well as the funding and policy landscape behind them, and found that - in their current form - they will generate high levels of traffic by condemning their residents to car-dependent lifestyles.
Most are planned in the wrong locations, far from town centres and rail stations. They show how the 20 Garden Communities they looked at would create up to 200,000 car-dependent households. They are set to worsen climate change. Their report looks at alternative ways of approaching housebuilding. It repays detailed reading and is especially relevant given the Planning Inspector’s Report and plans to review the Local Plan in the context of the Council’s declaration of a Climate Emergency. In January 2019
3. In Newsbrief 69 we recorded that we had requested that guidance on how the public could contribute to virtual planning meetings. We were pleased to see that draft instructions have now appeared on the Making Representations at Planning Meeting page see the details on following pdf https://www.lancaster.gov.uk/assets/attach/6064/Procedure%20Rules%20for%20Planning%20Committee%20Virtual%20Meetings.pdf