Meeting documents

Report of the County Archaeologist.

Mr Kidd reported that:

The Localism Bill contains proposals which aim to make the planning system clearer, and more effective. The draft National Planning Policy Framework (NPPF) works with the Localism Bill to put into practice the Duty to Cooperate, Neighbourhood Planning and other changes.  

The Localism Bill will abolish regional strategies which will see the abolition of the South East England Plan and lose a tier of development plans. Instead Councils are required to develop local plans which set out where different kinds of development should be located. They can also contain policies on the natural and historic environment.

The Localism Bill will also introduce Neighbourhood Planning and the draft PPF supports neighbourhood planning. A neighbourhood plan enables communities to have a genuine opportunity to influence the future of the places where they live and they will have the right to draw up a neighbourhood plan. Mr Kidd said that a bid for funding had been submitted so that Community Impact Bucks (CIB) could support this planning process and that the bid had been successful. He advised that there was a potential implication to the historic environment as he was not sure about undesignated development which would potentially be harmful.

A Member advised that Bristol City Council have developed a website called ‘Know Your Place’ which allows users to explore the neighbourhood through historic maps, images and linked information. Users can also upload information. The information on the website has helped the Council defend proposed planning developments and it was suggested that perhaps Buckinghamshire could introduce something similar to help provide evidence in any potential planning appeals. Another Member commented that local knowledge is important and said how with the passing of generations valuable information is often lost but with a system like this information could be preserved. Mr Kidd said he would look into the system used by Bristol City Council.

Mr Kidd then discussed the NPPF and said that a lot of detail has been lost. He advised that there is a strong emphasis on the need for supportive guidance to say what was intended and how to interpret the document. He said that the consultation has now ended and that the results are awaited.

He said that one of the concerns is that if the regional strategies are abolished, the Policy Planning Statements documents will be lost at national level. Local plans are not advanced and there is an assumption that Planning Policy Statement (PPS) 5 is in place. Mr Kidd said he is not sure where it leaves us and that the Council could potentially find itself in an awkward situation as local plans rely on documents which no longer exist.

A Member commented that Local Authorities (LA) who do not have plans in place may be vulnerable to development being pushed through. A Member from AVDC commented that their plan would not be in place until 2013. Mr Kidd encouraged all District Councils to look at their plans to ensure historic environment was included.