Speakers Corner

Core Strategy (Issues and Options): Riverland (Amenity, Biodiversity and Proximity) Part One

Part 1 | Part 2

The ERYC have recently issued a consultation paper relating to the Local Development Framework: it is called Core Strategy - Issues and Options (CS-I&O). It is a document of more than 100 pages and is part of the process of preparing a new Core Strategy that will, in turn, inform, the East Riding’s Local Development Framework, (LDF) – the overarching planning strategy framework for our area through to 2026. You may well be unaware of it, but this document – Core Strategy-Issues and Options – is a particularly important consultation document since it gives the general public its best chance of influencing the ERYC as to the content of the Core Strategy that will inform the Local Development Framework that will in turn determine the direction and of focus the development of the East Riding during the period 2011 – 2026.

The consultation period began on 28th April 2008 and will finish on 13th June 2008.

The Local Development Framework must be consistent with National planning policy and must also be in general conformity with Regional Planning Policy. The Regional planning policy is laid out in a document entitled the Regional Spatial Strategy for Yorkshire and the Humber, (RSS). A revised RSS, the Yorkshire and Humber Plan, is due to be published this month and is, I understand, a response to changes proposed for the earlier document, (or demanded of it), by the then Secretary of State, (in September 2007).

My understanding is that, in response to their obligation to produce a Local Development Framework, the ERYC will place particular emphasis on Housing Development and Renewable Energy Capacity as areas of especial concern for their planners. In the CS-I&O document itself however, attention is also paid to issues of Employment and the Local Economy, to Transport, to “Communities”, and to the Environment generally.

As indicated earlier, the East Riding LDF will be bound to respect National planning policy and, although intended to reflect local needs and aspirations, it will incorporate a central aim of national planning policy which is to deliver “Sustainable Development”. What this is you can judge for yourself by visiting the ERYC website, but in a nutshell however, it can be reduced, I think, to the idea of promoting a co-operative rather than competitive relationship between a categorised triad of interests, relevant to human life and activity – namely the Economy, the Social Community and the Environment – in order to secure benefits for all three.

To realise this aim in the East Riding, the ERYC intends to integrate the LDF with the East Riding Community Plan, which was itself drawn up after “extensive consultation with the wider community” and which has an aim of its own – “To sustain and create thriving, vibrant and sustainable communities in which everyone can enjoy a high quality of life”, (Community Plan, page 19). The East Riding Community Plan identified 6 Sustainability Principles to sustain this aim and these in turn have informed the 19 proposed objectives for the ERYC Core Strategy for the LDF. These proposed objectives are collected into 5 discrete groups, each of which in turn, under its own heading, provides a separate chapter in the remainder of the Core Strategy-Issues and Options, document.

The six Sustainability Principles of the Community Plan (SPCP) are to:

1). Build strong and inclusive urban and rural communities which reflect our culture, now and in the future.

2). Ensure that the East Riding is well managed.

3). Protect and enhance the quality of our towns and villages.

4). Provide quality environments.

5). Be economically prosperous.

6). Provide services which meet the peoples needs and are accessible to all.

The Proposed Objectives for the LDF, (headed according to group), are:

Spatial Strategy (SS) Objectives.

1). Support thriving and sustainable communities by locating development where it will enable people to access jobs and key services, such as shops, education, healthcare, recreation and other facilities.

2).Meet the needs of the Haltemprice settlements and support the regeneration of Hull as a Regional City.

3). Support the role and function of Beverley, Bridlington, Driffield and Goole as Principal Towns, responding to their specific needs, maximising regeneration opportunities and providing a greater mix of housing.

4). Strengthen the role of our market and coastal towns as local service centres, meeting the needs of our rural communities, and ensure that development is appropriate to their size and character.

5). Support and enhance the identity, individual character and vitality or our rural areas to ensure that development is appropriate and provides benefits to the overall community, encourages rural diversification and regeneration.

6). Ensure that new development is not at risk from hazards, including flood risk, and that new development reduces overall risk to people and property.

A Healthy and Balanced Housing Market (HBHM) Objectives.

7). Respond to local housing need by significantly increasing the provision of affordable housing throughout the East Riding.

8). Ensure a flexible supply of housing land which provides for a mix of housing by type and tenure, and takes into account the needs of everyone including the growing elderly population.

9). Make the most efficient use of land by balancing housing densities to reflect local circumstances and maximise the use of the East Riding’s finite supply of previously developed land.

A Prosperous Economy (PE) Objectives.

10). Strengthen, modernise and diversify the existing economic base and support both existing and emerging economic drivers and clusters.

11). Provide sufficient employment land in those parts of the East Riding where it is needed to enable existing businesses to expand to attract inward investment.

12). Encourage a thriving but sustainable tourism and visitor economy by making effective use of the countryside, coastal areas and town centres.

13). Ensure the prudent use of natural resources by providing for a steady and adequate supply to meet today’s need, while conserving sufficient to ensure future availability ,and to maximise the potential of renewable energy generation.

A High Quality Environment (HQE) Objectives.

14). Achieve high quality design in new developments and to minimise the environmental impacts of new development both during construction and lifelong use.

15). Recognise the international, national and local importance of our natural environment, and seek to protect our quality landscapes and enhance opportunities for biodiversity and countryside recreation wherever possible.

16). Value the special character of our settlements by ensuring that their built and historic heritage is adequately protected and enhanced.

A strong and healthy Community (SHC) Objectives.

17). Support the vitality and viability of our town and larger village centres by seeking to protect and enhance community services and facilities.

18). Ensure that new development is adequately serviced by new or existing infrastructure and community facilities.

19). Support the Sustainable Waste Management Strategy, (Target 45 +) thereby helping with the reduction of waste and improving the long term sustainability or waste management.

The different groups of LDF Objective are envisaged to variously combine, as “LDF Objective Sets” that in combination relate to each of the six Sustainability Principles of the Community Plan, (the SPCP): (Table 3 on page 29 of the CS-I&O “LDF and Community Plan Links”). Thus the SS, HBHM, PE, and SHC Objectives of the LDF are listed as the set of LDF objective groups that relate to the first SPCP. In the case of the fourth SPCP however it is the SS and HQE Objectives that are given as comprising the relevant LDF Objective response (set). So far we have progressed up to and through the Chapter 3 “Vision and Objectives” section of the CS-I&O document. There are another 5 chapters to the document each one of which devotes itself to each separate group of LDF Objectives. The structure of the CS-I&O document becomes quite complicated hereafter as does its relation to another document, the Sustainability Appraisal. I will not attempt to reproduce that structure for this article except as a footnote, (which see below). For the rest of what follows things will be kept at a visionary "Chapter 3" level only.

This article concerns itself primarily with the fourth CPSP in relation to a particular area of landscape in the ERoY and could expect therefore to preoccupy itself with the SS and HQE Objectives of the LDF as they relate to this. However, in my view the provision of quality environments, (the fourth CPSP), should influence, as an aspiration at least, every LDF Objective, (and not just the SS and HQE Objectives), since its concern is, primarily, to enhance our quality of life by improving, or at least maintaining, our surroundings and everything therein. Nevertheless, to try to keep some structure to what follows, the SS and HQE Objectives of the LDF will be looked at and then I will hope to look more widely as well.

As indicated above each different group of LDF Objectives has a chapter devoted to itself in the CS-I&O document, (chapters 4 – 8 inclusive). Within each chapter each group of LDF Objectives is considered at the level of a number of sub-headings or “issues” and the options available for each of these issues are then considered. So for the Spatial Strategy group of LDF objectives there are 10 issues considered which are listed SS1 – SS10 and for each issue two or more “options” are offered. Thus SS1 concerns itself with Flood Risk, (to allow development in high risk flood zones or not), and SS9 with the Distribution of Development, (Focus on Haltemprice, or Strengthen the role of the Principal Towns, or strengthen the role of Haltemprice and the Principal Towns, or continue Current Trends). For the Prosperous Economy group of LDF objectives there are no less than 11 “issues”, (PE-1 to PE-11). It is at this level of the CS-I&O document, that another document, the Sustainability Appraisal, seems important. This paper, produced independently of the ERYC purports to gauge the options available to each issue by a set of Sustainability Appraisal Objectives of which there are 20 listed and which amount, I suspect, to the Government’s policy wish list, (but in any event are not to be confused with the Proposed Objectives for the LDF mentioned above and with which we started out). They include, for example, an objective to improve air quality, (SA Objective Number 7), and one to reduce crime and the fear of crime, (SA Objective Number 2).

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