Saving part of a policy?? - Public forum - Planning Advisory Service (PAS)

Helen I suggest that you look at the wording of s1(2) in Schedule 8 of the 2004 Act which provides for the saving of old development plan policies. I assume that the Secretary of State served a direction which saved your local plan policy for Countryside Areas in its entirety. As you will see from s1(2)(b) the new policy must "expressly replace" the old policy. You say you are preparing a Core Strategy. I must therefore assume that the housing area you wish to propose in one of the countryside areas is of strategic significance. If it is you could state "expressly" that the Countryside area designation is removed only on that site and that the local plan policy is otherwise still in force. Alternatively, as a Core Strategy is not supposed to be site-specific you could say nothing and the saved local plan policy would continue to have effect until such time as you might choose to replace it in a site-specific DPD.

We had a similar situation in that we are preparing a Housing Polies DPD but will need to save policies in relation to non-residential, which will only partially be superseded. My understanding is that you cannot partially delete a saved local plan policy (as the regs don't work this way). But a newer adpoted policy that duplicates an older one will always hold more weight (to the point where only limited weight applied to the old policy). You should make clear within the LDF and AMR that you are only implementing the newer adopted policy and the still relevant part of the saved local plan policy - even though technically the saved policy still stands, albeit with limited weight attached to the outdated parts of it.

All these discussions about saved policies (or parts thereof) are kind of baffling me. The message in our NPPF world is that plans must be up-to-date. This is one way that potential conflicts between national / local / neighbourhoods will be framed. To me, being up to date means you can point to your current evidence and basket of policies and demonstrate that the one supports the other. Nothing to do with a paperwork trail back to an old UDP. This is a roundabout way of saying that if you're preparing a core strategy and a countryside area is an important part of the delivery of that plan then it should be designated as part of it. As best you can. Or am I just missing something ?

A simple answer which I adopted in my previous authority and was endorsed by the Core Strategy Inspector is; i) that unless the new policy supersedes the old one in its entireity, the old policy remains part of the Development Plan; ii) that for the purposes of decision making, both need to be considered; iii) that in the event of a conflict between the two, the most recently adopted policy (ie the LDF policy) will carry greater weight.

Richard I think you are right in this specific case but wrong as a general principal. Looking at the Blackpool LDS its seems they have made the mistake of considering the proposals map as as a separate DPD, to be prepared alongside allocations http://www.blackpool.gov.uk/NR/rdonlyres/14D3C89A-DD55-40AF-A694-C3C65003288B/0/LocalDevelopmentScheme07.pdf Under the regs you cant so this. If a core strategy has strategic sites and policy areas changes it must be updated at that point: furthermore proposals maps are not dpds. At the ongoing Luton and South Beds core strategy examination the inspector has been quite critical of the the joint committee not defining on the proposals map the core strategy strategic sites - prompted along by a note from Peter Village QC (of CALA fame) saying it is unlawful - quite rightly - check out the examination website. So here updating the proposals map at the same time as the core strategy overcomes the problem. In general situations John and Daniel are right, save the original policy and expressly state what parts are and are not saved in the original DPD - update the proposals map at the same time accordingly. It is still possible to see some circumstances under the post NPPF system where saved policies will still be relevant in those cases where LPAs have good reason got to 'one local plan', at least not immediately. Age is not material, up to dateness is. Many saved policies are necessary to carry through longstanding and still relevant structure plan or other policies until there is comprehensive coverage. Consider for example the few cases where LPAs carried out emergency allocation DPDs before core strategies.