To consider the Annual Monitoring Report 2008-2009.

The Team Leader Strategic Planning presented the report of the Planning Policy Manager about the Annual Monitoring Report 2007 – 2008.  He said that The Planning and Compulsory Purchase Act 2004 had introduced new provisions and requirements for development planning. The regular review and monitoring of Development Plans through mandatory Annual Monitoring Reports (AMR’s) was a fundamental feature of the new planning system.  AMR’s were based on the period from 1st April to 31st March and had to be submitted to the Secretary of State by no later than the following 31st December.  He advised that the AMR’s were required to assess the impact of the Councils planning policies and framework.  The Team Leader Strategic Planning presented the following updates to his report:

The reproduction of the report in the Agenda had “clipped” the text of certain paragraphs. The “missing text” (which is in the original document) is as follows

The Team Leader Strategic Planning also asked the Committee to note that on page 92f of the Agenda, that the partnership referred to was between Advantage West Midlands and the regional planning body (currently the West Midlands Regional Assembly).

The Committee considered the contents of the AMR and the Team Leader Strategic Planning highlighted the main features and outlined the extent to which the objectives of the Herefordshire Unitary Development Plan (UDP) policies were being met.  He advised the Committee of the key findings which had revealed the following:-

·         housing – for the UDP since 1996 some 10,395 new dwellings had been completed, amounting to 85% of the UDP target of 12,200 new dwellings.  The downturn in the housing market had meant that  689 had been  completed in the last 12 months (a fall of around 20% from the 829 completed in 2007-8. The percentage of housing completions on previously developed or brownfield land at 80% (550) had exceeded  regional and national targets.  208units of affordable housing, were completed in 2008-9,an increase over the previous year (141 units) which was the highest level recorded in the monitoring process.  In addition, the preparation of the Local Development Framework had provided an opportunity to review the UDP affordable housing policies and a number of options for this were set out in the Place Shaping Paper which would be published in January.

·         employment - the amount of land developed for employment uses over the monitoring period was 10.22ha, above the average recorded since the 1980’s.  Around 63% of the completions in the year were located on previously developed (brownfield) land.

·         in areas of transport, town centres and retail, recreational and leisure, minerals, waste, development requirements, natural historic heritage and renewable energy, findings generally indicated that there had been progress towards meeting targets or monitoring requirements during the2008-09 monitoring period.  The AMR also indicated that for the reporting period, 97 planning applications were approved subject to a Section 106 agreement.  The potential monetary value of those contributions was £3,939,493.00 and the AMR contained a breakdown of agreed planning obligations at parish level and the community infrastructure that those contributions would support.  This was the first year that such details had been included within the AMR.

Members asked questions about the various issues which were covered in the report and in particular the trends and targets that had been identified and the effectiveness of the policies set out within the Local Development Documents.  The targets and achievements in affordable and social housing provision, employment land and associated transportation issues were also debated.  Unitary Development Plan Objective TCR (1) regarding central shopping and Commercial areas was also referred to and Councillor AM Toon had concerns about whether such policies could be measured and monitored effectively.  The Head of Planning and Transportation said that the monitoring report reflected the transitional stage that the Council was at in moving from the older style development plan to the more recent local development framework which had a different approach to the core development and housing.  He said that the replacement plans would assist with the process when they were in place.  The Locum Lawyer added that the Local Development Framework addressed the spatial strategy issues and that the AMR helped to inform the Secretary of State what steps the Council had taken to deal with the matter.   Councillor Toon asked if there was a change of Government whether there was likely to be a different spatial strategy approach at Regional level.  She also asked about the future arrangements for dealing with Section 106 agreements.  The Head of Planning and Transportation was of the view that the arrangements were well under way at Regional level regardless of a change of Government.  Regarding the arrangements for dealing with Section 106 agreements, he said that this had proved to be very successful and that the contract of the S.106 Monitoring Officer had been extended by a further 12 months. 

Having considered the various aspects of the AMR, the Committee decided that it should be commended to the Cabinet Member

RESOLVED THAT

the Annual Monitoring Report 2008-2009 be endorsed and recommend its approval to the Cabinet Member (Environment and Strategic Housing).