Local Green Spaces on allocated sites

Planning Advisory Service (PAS)

Open group | Started - July 2012 | Last activity - Today

Lorayne Woodend, modified 7 Years ago.

Local Green Spaces on allocated sites

New Member Posts: 9 Join Date: 12/08/13 Recent Posts

We have a community that are preparing a Neighbourhood Plan and wish to include in it a Local Green Space designation to apply to a portion of a field on the edge of a small town - the wider field and neighbouring fields are allocated for mixed use (residential and employment) development in our adopted Local Plan. The site is not yet subject to a planning application but is subject to an adopted Development Brief. The Brief does identify a piece of land to be retained as public open space that closely reflects the area the community wishes to designate, however, Development Briefs are of course only guidance and the area identifed may not be the exact area actually left open in the final development.

Can a such a space be designated as Local Green Space?

i.e. firstly, would it meet the criteria anyway, especially the ones about it being demonstrably special to the community and local in nature given it is currently 'just' a portion of a field outside the town and currently has no public access

and

Secondly, if the NP is adopted with such a designation in it before the application is approved then it would effectively give policy weight to something set out only as guidance in the brief, it the application and approval came first then the NP could only designate whatever the approved development happened to leave as open space, which should be guided by the Brief but may not reflect it exactly...could either come first, are both appropriate/reasonable in process terms?

Jo Witherden, modified 7 Years ago.

RE: Local Green Spaces on allocated sites

Enthusiast Posts: 33 Join Date: 21/10/11 Recent Posts

Hi Lorayne - I have had a couple of similar situations with NP groups I am working with - I don't think these qualify as LGS as they are not locally valued in their current format - it is more akin to an allocation, so the advice I have been giving is that they can put the future local recreational use of that space into policy (along the lines of the supplementary guidance but giving it development plan weight, providing that the justification for the brief still stands), and in a future review of the NP when this land is in recreational use they can then give it the LGS designation.

Lorayne Woodend, modified 7 Years ago.

RE: Local Green Spaces on allocated sites

New Member Posts: 9 Join Date: 12/08/13 Recent Posts

Thanks Jo - that pretty much fits with my thinking

Lorayne

jim Allen, modified 7 Years ago.

RE: Local Green Spaces on allocated sites

New Member Post: 1 Join Date: 11/10/16 Recent Posts

HI Local Green spaces - We in Burpham simply cataloged every single green space in the community and allocated them as Local Green Spaces - while the examiner was controversial in removing some - for being to small and being to extensive when they were smaller than ones he approved and not accesssible to the public, all which are covered by the legislation. They all qualified under the regulations, noting other plans have simply said of Local Green spaces 'they are special to the community' and nothing else and they have been passed by the examiner. So from my laymans advice (we got the first Neighbourhood plan through in Guildford we are a forum not a parish) include all local Green spaces in the Neighbourhood plan (there is no upper or lower limit to how many you can have) and let the examiner try and remove it - if you don't put it in then it could be lost for ever, when it could have been saved for the community.

Lorayne Woodend, modified 7 Years ago.

RE: Local Green Spaces on allocated sites

New Member Posts: 9 Join Date: 12/08/13 Recent Posts

Thanks Jim - we already have almost all the greenspaces in this particular nneighbourhood designated as important open space through our District-wide Local Plan so the community only want to designate two in their NP. One of them is fine but the problem I have is that the other is simply part of a field that is within an allocated site for future housing and employment, for which a Development brief is being prepared. Part of the site will be retained for open space but it cannot be guaranteed that it will be the same bit they want to designate as LGS....in it's current form - i.e. it's a portion of a field outside of town - it would not fit the criteria for LGS, however, once the site is developed, there will be a space that will so it seems that they may have to wait until then to designate it.

Former Member, modified 7 Years ago.

RE: Local Green Spaces on allocated sites

Hi Lorayne,

We have a similar issue in our Borough where a Neighbourhood Plan seeks to designate Local Green Space as part of a strategic housing allocation in the Local Plan, with the Local Green Space boundary informed by an indicative masterplan (in an SPD) for a site that is yet to gain planning permission.

The indicative masterplan is precisely that, and there is no certainty that the area in the indicative masterplan will correlate to the area of open space that will be delivered as part of the development. To designate Local Green Space prior to permission being granted for the strategic site could be argued to unduly constrain or undermine the delivery of the strategic allocation (and strategic policy) in the Local Plan by applying Green Belt policy within the site. If this is the case then it would result in the NDP not being in general conformity with the strategic policies in the Local Plan, and the NDP failing to meet the basic conditions.

In my view the Local Green Space designation is to be applied retrospectively to open spaces with demonstrable community value. The open space delivered as part of the strategic allocation has the potential to meet the criteria in NPPF 77 in the future, and should that materialise then Local Green Space could be designated through a review of the NDP or Local Plan.

I'd be interested to hear your thoughts on this!

Anthony

Lorayne Woodend, modified 7 Years ago.

RE: Local Green Spaces on allocated sites

New Member Posts: 9 Join Date: 12/08/13 Recent Posts

Hi Anthony

Many thanks for this helpful response. It does sound like we have some very similar circumstances here, the only differences being that I'm not sure we'd consider the allocation we have as 'strategic' and we are calling our SPD a Development Brief rather than an Indicative Masterplan.

I don't think that in our case designating the particular part of the site as LGS could be argued to unduly constrain or undermine the delivery of the allocation as the Brief is adopted and shows as open space the exact area the NP wants to designate as LGS, so this is what the landowners and developers are expecting to have to at least reflect in any proposed development of the site - they have been involved in the preparation of the Brief - although the Brief is only guidance so the acutal open space on the ground is likely to be at least a little different to that in the LGS proposal and Dev Brief. I also don't think that in our case it would cause the Plan to conflict with the Strategic Policies of our adopted Local Plan because we would require that sort of level of open space to be provided on a site of this size through policy anyway.

I do however fully agree with you that LGS can realistically only be applied retrospectively - i.e. once they actually exist and once they can demonstrate community value. As you say, the open space delivered as part of the development of the allocation is likely to meet the criteria in NPPF 77 in the future, and LGS could then be designated through a review of the NP or Local Plan.

Thanks again for your reply - togetehr with the earlier responses, that helps us respond to the NP group with confidence that our thinking was along the right lines.