OLD COLWYN EAST RESIDENTS ASSOCIATION
11th May 2005
Mr Thomas opened his talk by saying that his department is in the very early stages of developing a Local Development Plan, which is a statement of policies and proposals for local development. It consists of a written statement, reasoned justification and proposals map. Such a map covers areas designated for development such as dwellings, retail units or offices, or areas for protection from development such as conservation areas or green barriers between settlements . The Plan is mandatory to prepare and must be kept up to date through a review process .
Settlements must be defined so that development is concentrated within settlements rather than encroaching on countryside.
T he Local Development Plans almost always have to be followed, in making planning decisions unless there are material considerations why they should not be followed. T his gives planning committees flexibility to go against Development Plan policies in very specific exceptional circumstances.
Since the provision came into effect in 1991, c ouncils are normally very stringent about applying the Development Plans than they were previously.
There are four existing adopted development plans in Conwy in mentioning them Mr. Thomas opted to concentrate on the Clwyd Structure Plan and the Colwyn Borough Local Plan which were adopted in 1999.
The Structure Plan deals with the strategy of an area but unlike a Local Development plan it does not contain a detailed proposals map.
The purpose of the local plan is to carry policies of the structure plan through and apply them at a local level; this is where the proposals map is produced.
A Unitary Development Plan combines the strategic elements of the structure plan and the detailed elements of a local development plan into a single document.
A draft Unitary Development Plan was issued for consultation in 2001 it and this resulted in 6,000 responses . Some related to specific housing sites but there were other general representations as well .
Work to on the UDP was unable to take place initially because the council commissioned a flood risk study to examine the risks from seawater flooding in the Towyn Kinmel Bay area and the storm water surges in the Conwy Valley . The council wished to consider the results of the study in the UDP.
It is a consultation plan at present but is still a consideration when no other policies apply. S ome areas in the Conwy Valley for instance do not have an action plan at all. It is also a consideration in the area covered by the Colwyn Borough local action plan; if there are no relevant policies in the local plan then the unitary plan is applied.
There have been four changes since Conwy County Borough started work on the Unitary Development Plan~
LDPs are supposed to be more concise and should not repeat national policy. One very important distinction is that there should be an emphasis on consensus. Public participation is intended to create further strategies and therefore the Planning Dept engages with the community and interest groups before preparing a draft document for consultation.
Consultation will lead into the Council's Preferred Strategy. The intention of the Welsh Assembly is that, by “frontloading” public participation, if a consensus on the plans can be obtained, then it is likely that there will be fewer objections when the plan goes on deposit later.
Certain issues exist that the L.D.Plan must have regard to under the Planning and Compulsory Purchase Act.
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National Policy generally including planning policy
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The Wales Spatial Plan
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The Council's Community Strategy
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“Such other matters as the Assembly provides”
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The available resources.
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The Welsh Assembly has issued Draft Regulations for consultation specifying that the LDP will have regard to the Local Transport Plan, which may be replaced by a Regional Transport Plan. The Prevention of major accidents; controls over hazardous substances; and the Waste Strategy for Wales .
Guidance will probably come from the National Assembly in future. The LDP will have regard to Local Housing Strategy, The Regional Waste Plan, Regional Assessments on Aggregates, (quarry related) and the Waste Strategy for Wales .
Consultation will take place with
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The specific consultation bodies ( have to engage) eg National Assembly, adjoining Planning Authorities Gwynedd and Clwyd and the National Park; Town and Community Councils of which there are 27 in the area; The strategic rail authority ( soon to change); The Environment Agency (Water supplies and managing waste) The Countryside Council for Wales (Countryside and wildlife habitat generally); CADW ( the historic environment, listed buildings, scheduled monuments) and Telecom, sewage, gas, electricity and water companies.
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Such general consultation bodies as the planning authority considers appropriate. Voluntary bodies such as residents' associations. Minority groups, disabled, business community and bodies representing Welsh culture.
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The next stage
Task and finish group examine the results and choose a preferred strategy and alternate strategies.
A Sustainability appraisal to look at how the plans, (both preferred and alternative) will perform against social, environmental and economic criteria / Strategic Environmental Assessment of the preferred Strategy, looking at the environmental issues.
Consultation on the preferred strategy followed by a decision whether to uphold or modify it; and then prepare detailed proposals including a proposals map:-
Deposit the plan, a statutory period during which people can make representations.
Review representations on the deposited plan.
Advertise site allocation representations.
If representations are received on specific sites whether suggesting new sites or objecting to sites that have already been allocated, the department have to advertise a list of representations for other people to comment on those representations. This is a transparent process.
Submit deposit LDP and the representations to the Government Planning Inspectorate
which examines the soundness of the plan? Is it coherent; is it consistent with regard to the list of matters to which the plan must have regard?
Inspectors then prepare a report on the plan. The council must follow the representations of the Inspector.
Finally ADOPTION by the Council within two months of the Inspectors report.
From then on annual monitoring and review every four years.
Mr Thomas then offered to answer any questions that people had to ask.
A resident asked how long the process was likely to take, Mr Thomas replied that the National Assembly are anticipating that it will take four years to complete the cycle but he added that because of the number of stages that the process has to go through, that is an optimistic projection. There is a consensus with various authorities that it could take longer.
A resident asked about the Colwyn Borough Local Plan and Mr Thomas said that it is available to view at the Council Offices and will soon be available on the website. It details issues on allocations such as housing, employment and retailing, tourism and protection of areas. Such areas include Special Landscape Areas.
The secretary asked Mr Thomas to give an input about a previously notified question, the Church House in Cliff Road, Old Colwyn on which planning permission to demolish had been refused by a planning officer although strongly supported by residents.
Mr Thomas replied that he could only answer factual questions on the Church House as he lived nearby to the property and would have to declare an interest if discussing the merit of the case.
From his understanding the application was refused on the basis; first of all it is a listed building and the application was not supported by the evidence that is expected for applications for listed building concerns; also the building is within a Conservation Area and proposals involving the demolition of buildings in Conservation Areas can only be supported in cases where specific criteria apply, in the case of Conservation areas for example, the department looks at the impact of the development on the character and amenity of the area.
The secretary continued to say that the application for demolition had had a lot of support from local people and parishioners of the Church. The Church had sold it because it had no use for it in its present state. The building is falling down inside and everyone heard that it was supported from Town Council and suddenly everyone heard that it had been refused by an officer of the Planning Department rather that Planning Committee where the public could get involved. It now seems to be a stalemate, there is no way forward, the cost to restore the building as a listed building would be millions of pounds. The feasibility study had gone into the issues of use of the building before the developer applied for the planning permission to demolish the building. It appears that all those issues have been brushed under the table just because it is a listed building. It appears as beurocracy gone mad in the opinion of local people.
Housing would be a way of using the land well, whereas just to keep the building because of its listed status, even though it is falling down inside and has no use.
He then asked how the residents can go about putting their thoughts into writing and making representations on the issue, which they had supported originally.
Mr Thomas replied that the decision has already been made although it can be appealed against. If there is an appeal against the decision, then those who made representations on the original application will be notified that there is an appeal in and depending on the type of procedure involved, there will be an opportunity to make written or verbal comments.
The secretary continued that the Association had made representations on the initial application.
Mr Thomas replied that if such representations were made, then they would be forwarded to the Planning Inspectorate, a Division of the National Assembly, an executive agency, although employed by Government are independent inspectors. They are not answerable directly to Government for their decisions, but act as independent tribunals. They decide matters as previously discussed in the presentation such as Development Plans and they decide appeals as well as in this case for planning permission and as in this case also potentially for listed building consent.
There are different appeal procedures, some just an exchange of written statement; others involve an enquiry or hearing.
The secretary brought up the subject of a written answer as to why the planning permission had been refused had still not been given to the applicant. He asked if that written answer had now been given.
Mr Thomas replied There are always reasons whenever the Department decide on a planning application, if the decision is to refuse, there will always be reasons.
The secretary asked how long the procedure takes so that the matter can move forward.
Mr Thomas responded that the reasons will accompany the decision.
The secretary asked if the residents could ask to see the reasons.
Mr Thomas replied that we are welcome to look at the planning decision which will include the reasons for refusal. It will be in the Planning Register at the Planning Offices.
The Chair asked if the next Local Development Plan which will take four or five years would cover development in the County for the next fifteen years.
Mr Thomas replied that it will cover a long as yet undetermined but significant timescale. The National Assembly intends that it will reviewed every four years.
A resident suggested that it is time to abolish the Welsh Assembly and go back to the old borough council when things seemed so much better. Things seem to take so much time to be decided he said when the objective is known and the best option quite obvious. He quoted an example of the traffic management at the West End of Colwyn Bay. He finished by asking how much of this stems from Europe ?
Mr Thomas replied that the Strategic Environment Assessment is a European Directive but the remainder comes from the Welsh Assembly.
The secretary asked if there is any pre-read material for the Local Development Plan meeting.
The meeting is still in the process of the organisation phase. There will be no pre-read material probably as the reason for the meeting is to gather ideas rather than to impose a solution.
The Chair asked if it was the case that the procedure outlined made things longer. He added surely Mr Thomas is the Planning Officer and knows the situation and should do the job and be prepared to take the flak.
Mr Thomas replied that that is the procedure laid down by the National Assembly.
The secretary asked for clarification over the types of matters considered in the Local Development Plan, is it roads over the next five to ten years for instance? Also housing requirements?
Mr Thomas answered that Housing needs will certainly be a feature. How many houses are needed and where they are needed, are they going to be on the coast or are we going to distribute them so that there is a housing site in every village. They are very sensitive issues he said, agreeing with an intervention about affordability, which is another important issue which is contentious in the Council at the moment.
How much of a contribution can be expected from brown-field sites ie previously developed land. He told the meeting that the Welsh Assembly is very strong on the re-use of previously developed land in preference to green-field sites. There may however be a need for the latter as well.
He gave an example of when the Department went out to consultation on the UDP, there were proposals for around a dozen housing sites mostly within villages. There were objections to almost every one, in some cases hundreds of objections. People do not like to see medium to large housing developments he said but the Department has to take into account the council's own housing needs survey, which has highlighted a significant shortfall in the provision of affordable housing.
The Chair thanked Mr Thomas for the talk and there was a round of applause.
