The previous blog on the new architecture of English planning devolution explained the framework for creating a new larger than local geography for planning decision. Two practical issues will be worth looking out for as the system beds in.
Where to Play – Sites vs Areas
A Spatial Development Strategy must not identify a specific site for development (Section 12D(12)). This reflects a point about subsidiarity – that site allocations remain for the Local Plan. Nonetheless, they have to look 25 years ahead (and do so in a way that can influence investment, land markets and infrastructure decisions).
This creates a tension – strategic planning is more than a numbers game; as well as identifying quantitative needs, it must have some spatial ‘rules’. The statutory regime anticipates this by allowing the SDS to identify areas which are suitable for or have capacity for development or infrastructure.
In the absence of site allocation powers, expect to see various flavours of suitable/ capable areas:
- Broad locations for growth;
- Opportunity Areas;
- Development Corridors;
- Areas of search;
- Zones With Identified Development Capacity; and
- Infrastructure-led growth areas
We will see how tight the lines can be drawn around these areas before they become a prohibited “specific site” (and how decisions on call-in schemes – see the next blog – deal with prejudice to the development of the area from inconsistent schemes).
Good Old SEA
Genuine strategic choices engage proper strategic environmental assessment. The decline of local plan making – and a sensibly restrained approach to SEA challenges by the Senior Courts – has meant that the SEA has been slightly on the back burner since the days of No Adastral New Town[1].
Guidance treats sustainability appraisal and SEA as an iterative process for testing the emerging strategy against reasonable alternatives. The key issue for this kind of exercise is being sure to ask at the outset ‘alternative to what’? “Obvious non-starter options” can be discarded up front[2]. That includes those that, for example, simply do not meet the core goals or legal purpose of the plan or programme. “Reasonable alternatives” must therefore be realistic, viable options capable of achieving the plan’s objectives.
Being crystal clear up front about a sensibly narrow range of objectives is therefore one of the key points for avoiding SEA induced misery and delay to plan-making (both from those who object to the plan per se and those who wish the Area of Search/ Growth Corridor lay across their land). It will also help cope with the need to consider Habitats Regulations duties when preparing and adopting an SDS.
Both of these will test the teams supporting Mayors in driving forward with SDSs.
[1] Considering SEA failings in a Core Strategy challenge back in early 2015: No Adastral New Town Ltd v Suffolk Coastal DC [2015] EWCA Civ 88
[2] Hickinbottom, J in RLT Built Environment Ltd v Cornwall Council [2016] EWHC 2817 (Admin)
