Mendip’s Local Plan has been submitted for independent Examination, which will be in April 2014 – see http://www.mendip.gov.uk/article/3290/Mendip-Local-Plan-submitted-for-Independent-Examination

Mendip’s website with all the documents is here – http://www.mendip.gov.uk/localplanexamination

Under the ‘Examination Hearing Sessions’ title there are two very important documents:

1. the ‘Main Matters’ is a list of what the Inspector wants to examine. These are: Duty to Cooperate, Spatial Strategy, Housing Numbers, Distribution of Housing, Strategic Housing Sites and Future Growth Areas, Housing Supply, Affordable Housing, Gypsies and Travellers, Business Development, and Local Development Policies.

Matter 4 (Distribution of Housing) questions where, in broad terms, would the additional 505 houses identified in the Minor Modifications, be located? The Main Mods states (MM34) that the location for the additional housing is best addressed in the Local Plan Part 2: Site Allocations document (which will be prepared this year and next), and that allocations are ‘likely to focus on sustainable locations in the north/north-east of the District which have the closest interactions with … Bath, Bristol and Trowbridge.’ which sounds like it would include Frome, but we’ll have to wait and see.

Matter 9 (Business Development) includes part of policy CP6 for Frome, which specifies that town centre developments in Frome will include a medium scale foodstore of about 1500 sq m (net), and the Inspector wants to question the justification for this figure, although officers have now proposed the specific size is removed from the Local Plan through the submitted Minor Modifications.

2. The Guidance Notes: this outlines the process and some deadlines, the first being Friday 24th January for anyone who wants to appear at the hearings to tell the Programme Officer what they want to talk about (which must be on the Main Matters list of issues).

You may also be interested to see David Heath MP secured an important debate on the role of Local Plans in local planning decisions with the Government’s Planning Minster, being concerned with villages mainly north of Frome being targeted by developers in the absence of an adopted Local Plan – http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm201314/cmhansrd/cm140108/halltext/140108h0001.htm#14010837000001

See http://adamboyden.mycouncillor.org.uk/2013/12/05/mendip-local-plan-update/ for previous news on this. I have been informed and consulted about the Local Plan in 2012 and 2013 as part of Mendip’s cross-party Local Plan Members Advisory Group.

Update 5th February 2014:

The Inspector has decreed that not all of the modifications proposed by Mendip DC are ‘minor’, and this has required the preparation of a ‘Main Modifications’ document as well as a revised ‘Minor Modifications’. The Main Mods include the increase in requirement for housing in the district (by 505), and the removal of the specific size of a foodstore at Saxonvale in Frome. See http://www.mendip.gov.uk/localplanexamination and the ‘Examination docs’ for full details.

The Examination starts at the end of March.

 

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