Issue - meetings

The Principal Planning Officer introduced the report and stated that the Government’s consultation on Draft Revisions to the National Planning Policy Framework (NPPF) and new draft National Model Design Code would occur between 8 February 2021 and 27 March 2021.

The implications to development management were outlined to include a 10% requirement for all major developments that included housing to be for affordable housing, the incorporation of tree lined streets for development, increased flood risk tests, that ill-designed proposals could be rejected and that the scale and extent of development within national parks and area of outstanding national beauty (AONB) were sensitive to the area and that historic statues and memorials were protected.

The considerations to plan making were that design codes for larger scale development should have a 30-year vision, an expansion of the tests of soundness, restrictions of the use of Article 4 directions and higher tests for its use and its application to smaller geographical areas, that neighbourhood plans could also allocate larger sites and be involved in the development of the local planning authority’s (LPA) design policies.

The draft National Design Code aimed to support LPAs in formulating their own design codes to manage development in the local area.

In discussing the responses, the Committee expressed support for the responses as detailed in Appendix 1 to the report. The changes suggested included that reference should be made to the Council’s effort to protect office space of value within the Town Centre against conversion to residential use, to seek a definition on what was meant by ‘attractive’ in regards to cycle routes and to include a comment on the importance of the setting of the AONB.

RESOLVED: That

1.  The content of the national government consultation ‘A consultation on draft revisions to the National Planning Policy Framework and a new draft National Model Design Code’ be noted; and

2.  The draft responses to the consultation as shown in Appendix 1 to the report be agreed for submission (as may be amended by the Head of Planning and Development following consideration of the Committee’s comments by 19 March 2021 in consultation with the Chair and Vice-Chair of the Committee) to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government, before 11.45 p.m. on 27 March 2021.