Re: Localism and Green Belt - Public forum - Planning Advisory Service (PAS)
Re: Localism and Green Belt
I thought I would revive my original thread from a couple of years ago but with more focus on the relationship to neighbourhood plans.
I have had informal opinion/advice that a NP can't amend a GB boundary, largey it appears, because it would undermine the strategic purposes of the GB. However, I'm not sure i agree not least because an NP is part of the statutory Dev Plan but also for two reasons:
Hasn't there always been a two-tier apprach to GB bounday setting? Structure Plans set the broad extent/outer boundary (through a strategic GBR) and Local Plans set the detailed and inner GB boundaries (through a local GBR). This distinction was mantained between the Core Strategy and Site Allocations in the old hierarcical LDF. Why can't it be continued between a new Local Plan (strategic) and NP (local)?
With regard to undermining strategic purposes, doesn't an LPA have to 'sign off' a NP and isn't one of the purposes of the NP examination to check compliance with strategic policies? So if a LPA was concerned that a proposed NP GB boundary did undermine the GB, the NP should not be 'made'?
Any thoughts or experiences from elsewhere would be apreciated particularly if these arguements have not been upheld.
Thanks
John
John,
I may be missing a trick here, but if the main reason for wanting a NP to be able to amend a green belt boundary is actually to get full involvement of the neighbourhood in that amendment, then i think this can still be done through the local plan process.
A local authority can presumably ask the neighbourhood forum/parish council to come up with the amended boundary, and then adopt that in the local plan (subject to appropriate evidence etc). This gets round the legal issue, whilst retaining the localism, doesn't it?
I think the other point about green belt being a more strategic policy is that small-scale or piecemeal alterations to the green belt really shouldn't be the way forward. A council ought to commit to doing a one-time review of the whole of the green belt, encouraging local 'ownership' of that work where possible.
NPPF makes clear that once there is a decision to review, the boundary should be able to endure beyond the current plan period. I think this is less likely to be the case if it is done on a neighbourhood by neighbourhnood basis.
As for any examples, I am sure that Mole Valley had been in discussion with the neighbourhood at Bookham to discuss their role in reviewing the green belt in that neighbourhood area. I don't know how this has progressed, though.
Thanks
Adam