Huntingdonshire’s ‘Planning for the Future’ core strategy, which sets out how development in the district will be managed over the next 15 years will need to be withdrawn on the recommendation of the Secretary of State because of further advice on amended procedures.
It is disappointing news for the council, which hoped that after its consideration had been postponed at the pre-examination meeting in September 2006, that the Strategy could have been modified in line with emerging advice being issued to all local planning authorities regarding the spatial content of Core Strategies (a course of action which was then being advocated by the Planning Inspectorate).
The Council is also concerned because this decision means it will now have to go back to the beginning of the core strategy preparation process, and while efforts will be made to ‘fast-track’ its resubmission, this requirement will inevitably further delay the policy preparation process by some months.
By 31st March the Council will have revised its Local Development Scheme setting out what documents it intends to produce and the projected timescale for their production. The revised scheme will indicate that the preferred options stage of the revised Core Strategy, Development Control Policies and the West of Huntingdon area action plan documents will be available by the end of this year. The submission documents and examination will follow in 2008.
In the meantime the Council intends to adopt an Interim Planning Policy Statement outlining the local policies it intends to apply when dealing with planning proposals. This will include a mixture of saved Development Plan policies, policies from the withdrawn Core Strategy and other local planning policy guidance. It is intended that this Interim Planning Policy Statement will be submitted to the Council’s the Cabinet in April, in order to coincide with the withdrawal of the submitted document.
Steve Ingram, Huntingdonshire’s Head of Planning Services, whilst acknowledging that this unfortunate but necessary revision will cause some concern to, and inevitably additional work for local landowners, prospective developers and their agents, stated that the Council had no option but to follow this intended course of action.
Mr Ingram said: “With Huntingdonshire occupying a key location within the Cambridge to Peterborough growth area it is vitally important that a robust planning policy framework is put into place in order to ensure that the required new developments can be appropriately and sustainably delivered”.
Councillor Peter Bucknell, executive councillor for planning strategy said: “This is a very unfortunate development. We were one of the first in the region to produce the new style core strategy. We are in a growth area and we felt it was important to move quickly to produce an up to date policy framework. A new core strategy will be drawn up in line with the Secretary of State’s recommendations, as soon as possible.”