Saving of Local Plan / UDP Policies - Public forum - Planning Advisory Service (PAS)

Tandridge District Council is proposing to save the majority of its policies from its 2001 plan, and to only delete those that have expired or are clearly not in accordance with the protocol. Our DC officers have been closely involved in the process of deciding which policies are still of use. Even though it is intended to retain a majority of policies there are still quite a number that can be safely deleted. I think officers and the public will have to accept a very confusing situation until all Local Plan policies have been replaced. It will be interesting to see how the Planning Portal will deal with this.

Just before Christmas did saved polciies reports for four London Boroughs, Newham, Lewisham, Enfield ands Sutton, using a database system designed around the Depts protocol. The attitude varied, Sutton, Enfield and Newham wanted a cleansing of the stables, getting rid of old policies, Lewisham wanted to get rid of as few as possible. For example they didnt even want to get rid of some policies entirely superceded by national or regional policy. From my experience you can make a good case for deleting as much as 30-40% of policies in areas with an up to date and approved RSS. For example the London Plan had much more up to date policies on many issues - such as protecting flood defences, biodiversity etc. Particular care needs to be taken with old allocations cluttering up proposals maps. One 'unamed' herts authority proposed saving everything, but had not realised they would need a new proposals map on core strategy submission would create an almighty mess on the proposals map. I also think that the public and members will need soem form of comendium of relevantb policies, even when all LDFs are completed, as in the future there will be much more reliance on national and regional policies for matters uch as Green Belts and Conservation.

Our plan, although adopted in April 04, is badly out of date in many areas. We are looking to get rid of around 40 out of 166 policies which are either implemented, duplicatory or unimplementable. We therefore welcome this opportunity to get rid of a lot of dead policy. In terms of presentation, we intend to prepare an indicative composite plan document containing only the surviving material. An interesting question, given that the presumption is that policies will go unless LPAs request that they be retained, is whether Government can compel an LPA to retain policies which the LPA wishes to delete, particularly in the case of site allocations.

Staffordshire Moorlands District Council met on Mon 19 Feb and we scrapped around 82 of 126 Local Plan policies. While some have been replaced with other renewed national guidance, I am concerned that some have been removed where there has been no replacement guidance. This leaves some big holes in this interim period until the new LDF is adopted (our Local Plan expired in 2003).

Norwich City Council has an adopted plan from November 2004, so does not have to prepare the submission until end of May 2007. The letter from Government Office containing the format for submissions referred to the fact that government can decide to save policies, even if the authority has not requested it. It would be interesting to know whether any indication has been given of why this might be considered. Another aspect was made clear recently - that you cannot 'save' parts of policies. Hence our allocations policies, which list numerous sites, many of which are already developed, will have to be saved, since there remain one or two sites that are still relevant. I am suggesting that several policies can be deleted, as being covered through other mechanisms (including SPD). However, the ones that concern me, as not meeting most of the government's criteria, are locally distinctive interpretations of policies about conservation or design etc. which are unlikely to be replicated elsewhere.

It would have been helpful if the DCLG protocol had contained more advice in relation to the criteria for the saving of policies, as set out in para. 5.15 of PPS12. In particular, Criteria ( v ) ( Policies for change ) and ( vi ) ( repitition of national or regional policy ) are open to interpretation to say the least. Any comments from anyone currently putting together a schedule of saved policies to meet the April 1 deadline ?