To recommend to Council that the Strategic and Local Plan Consultation Document be approved for consultation under Regulation 18 of the Town and Country Planning (Local Planning) (England) Regulations 2012 and that authority be delegated to the Associate Director: Planning, in consultation with the Lead Member for Built Environment, to prepare diagrams illustrating the general location of development options for inclusion in the consultation document, and to make any other necessary minor amendments, corrections and additions to the document prior to publication for consultation.

That it be RECOMMENDED TO COUNCIL:

1.    That the Strategic and Local Plan Consultation Document (Appendix 1) be APPROVED for consultation under Regulation 18 of the Town and Country Planning (Local Planning) (England) Regulations 2012.

2.    That authority be delegated to the Chief Executive, in consultation with the Lead Member for Built Environment, to prepare diagrams illustrating the general location of development options for inclusion in the consultation document, and to make any other necessary minor amendments, corrections and additions to the document prior to publication for consultation. 

47.1           The report of the Interim Planning Policy Manager, circulated at Pages No. 76-122, attached, at Appendix 1, the Strategic and Local Plan Consultation Document which was proposed to be used for public consultation on broad spatial options and policy issues in line with the relevant legislation.  Members were asked to recommend to Council that the Strategic and Local Plan Consultation Document be approved for consultation under Regulation 18 of the Town and Country Planning (Local Planning) (England) Regulations 2012 and that authority be delegated to the Associate Director: Planning, in consultation with the Lead Member for Built Environment, to prepare diagrams illustrating the general location of development options for inclusion in the consultation document, and to make any other necessary minor amendments, corrections and additions to the document prior to publication for consultation.

47.2           The Lead Member for Built Environment advised that, as Members were aware, the Council had agreed to formally work together with Cheltenham Borough and Gloucester City Councils on a Strategic and Local Plan (SLP).  This was the start of a long journey and, as had been discussed many times, there would be important decisions and choices to make on the way.  The formative Regulation 18 stage was about asking people what they thought the plan should contain and obtaining views on broad policy options and issues – it was about big questions such as how and where to respond to the needs of a growing population and how to address climate change and nature recovery through the planning system.  It was therefore proposed that the draft document, attached at Appendix 1 to the report, be published to form the basis of a wide ranging round of public consultation and engagement starting in December.  This included a draft vision and strategic objectives which had been discussed at various points with Tewkesbury Borough Council’s Planning Policy Reference Panel, and equivalent Member panels across the partnership.  It also set out a range of issues and posed 31 questions to start the conversation with communities and the development industry.  The Planning Policy Reference Panel recently met jointly with the Member Working Groups from Cheltenham Borough and Gloucester City Councils and a large number of helpful comments and suggestions were made on an earlier version of the document. To a large extent, these were reflected in the revised draft consultation document set out in the Committee papers.  She reiterated that one of the recommendations was that the document be further refined before being published in December. This would include concept diagrams, which were currently being drawn up, which will attempt to generally illustrate – without showing site details – the patterns of development that would arise from the various growth options presented in the document.  Gloucester City Council’s Cabinet had approved the document the previous night and Cheltenham Borough Council will be considering the document at its Council meeting on 11 December 2023.  It was proposed to launch the consultation immediately after Tewkesbury Borough Council’s meeting on 12 December 2023, to ensure that documents were in the public domain before Christmas, with active engagement commencing early in 2024.  It was proposed that the consultation should be for no less than eight weeks in part to recognise the interruption of the Christmas break.  In terms of the approach to consultation - which would be an important part of this process, as had previously been discussed by the Committee - although there were minimum standards in the Statement of Community Involvement, it was intended to be ambitious and creative and work was underway to reach as many people as possible, including young people who traditionally did not take part in such consultations; this would include a mixture of face to face, digital and targeted methods.  The proposed approach to consultation would be discussed at another joint Planning Policy Reference Panel meeting to be arranged shortly.  This marked the early stages of the SLP, and it was recommended that Council should be asked to resolve that the document at Appendix 1 be published for consultation; as a number of minor amendments and corrections would be needed, including inclusion of the diagrams, delegated authority was also being sought for these to be made by the Associate Director: Planning in consultation with the Lead Member for Built Environment prior to issuing the final document.

47.3           In response to a query as to whether there was any update in relation to Page No. 88, Paragraphs 1.17-1.19 of the report in respect of planning reform, the Interim Planning Policy Manager advised that the document acknowledged there were multi-layered reforms being proposed, some of which may happen whereas others may not in terms of planning.  Most significantly, the enactment of the Levelling Up and Regeneration Bill would have an effect on the way things moved forward but nothing had happened which would fundamentally alter the approach being taken in respect of this document.

47.4           A Member expressed the view that it would be beneficial to have a 10 week consultation given the Christmas break.  She noted that the document would be subject to minor revisions prior to publication and indicated that she had noticed several spelling and punctuation errors as well as some jargon which Members would understand but lay persons may not.  In addition, she pointed out that the links included within the document were not currently active.  With regard to Page No. 83 of the report, which talked about the way people lived in the area, she did not think it was mentioned that Tewkesbury, in particular, was an attractive rural area.  Page No. 84 of the report referred to 10% Biodiversity Net Gain and she felt this should also mention that 25% would be expected for a Garden Town; in addition, Officers had undertaken to find out whether the same percentage applied to Garden Villages.  The Associate Director: Planning advised that 25% Biodiversity Net Gain for Garden Towns was not set through legislation; it may be that the government was pushing Garden Towns to go further but that decision would be through policy made at a local level, through a local plan, and would be considered through the plan-making process.  The Interim Planning Policy Manager confirmed that the document posed a specific question as to whether the SLP should require more than the mandatory minimum 10% Biodiversity Net Gain through development.

47.5           The Member went on to draw attention to Page No. 87 of the report, which referred to working with other Councils and stakeholders and the duty to cooperate, as she felt this needed to be made much clearer.  Residents did not understand why there was so much building in Tewkesbury Borough but it still did not have a five year housing land supply.  Page No. 91, Paragraph 2.7 of the report did not seem to contain a full sentence and Paragraph 2.9 of the report was confusing in the way it was written.  The Interim Planning Policy Manager acknowledged that the document would need to be reviewed in terms of grammatical corrections and he referred to the ambitious timetable Officers had faced in order to go out to public consultation before the end of the year following the Council resolution in July.  Several Officers had been working on the document in tandem in order to get it to a point where it could go into the respective Council’s Committee cycles and it may be that some of the paragraphs identified had already been made into Plain English.  It was a real challenge to express technical concepts which were aimed as much at the development industry as members of the public and there would come a point where the document could not be made any more straight forward; however, he provided assurance that Officers would continue to endeavour to make such improvements where possible.  In terms of Paragraph 2.7 specifically, this related to the concept that, although the Council had resolved to go forward with Cheltenham Borough and Gloucester City Councils, there would be issues for Tewkesbury Borough, or parts of Tewkesbury Borough, only which must not be lost – Cheltenham Borough and Gloucester City would also have their own issues.  The document asked which matters were strategic and needed to be addressed jointly and which were locality based.  With regard to Paragraph 2.9, the important principle at this stage was that no decisions were being made about sites, or the approach as to where sites ought to be.  At some point there was a duty to publish a Housing and Economic Needs Assessment, and a call for sites had been issued to identify suitable land, but this consultation document was in very broad terms, albeit there would be site specific evidence underpinning it.  The Lead Member for Built Environment indicated that the duty to cooperate had been discussed by the Planning Policy Reference Panel and there was a general opinion that the Joint Core Strategy had not benefited Tewkesbury Borough Council in the way it should have done.   There was a need to improve upon the last agreement and it was up to Members to ensure there was a better outcome from this process.

47.6           With regard to the climate change objectives at Page No. 94 of the report, the Member pointed out that nothing was included in respect of insulation and Page No. 95 of the report made no reference to pool cars which she felt needed to be promoted.  The Chair explained that sustainable transport and active travel was a priority and this focused on reducing the need to travel and creating real options for healthy and accessible and walkable neighbourhoods where key services were available without the need to use motorised transport.  The Member pointed out that people would still need to use cars but there should be a focus on sustainability – people did not need to own a car, they could use a pool car as and when it was appropriate to do so.  The Lead Member for Built Environment reminded Members this was a consultation document so it was important not to get caught up on the detail; the Regulation 18 stage was about asking people what they thought the plan should contain and residents should be encouraged to input into the consultation which would form the basis of what was ultimately taken forward.  The Member took the point this was a consultation but expressed the view that the document was making suggestions.  Page No. 109 of the report talked about people shopping online or at retail parks but did not refer to the movement of people who had stopped consuming and she felt the Council had a responsibility to include some of those options in the document.  In response, the Associate Director: Planning explained it was a stylistic choice in terms of how Officers had put together the consultation document to offer a flavour of what some of the responses might be to the issues identified, for example, reducing the need to travel or moving to sustainable modes of travel would certainly have an impact on climate change but he felt that car pooling was probably a separate category and he suggested including a statement to cover all sections of the document to clarify it was not intending to be exhaustive.  In his experience, whilst there were documents which did not go as far as providing examples, these did not tend to get the best responses so a balance needed to be struck.  The Member made reference to Page No. 111 of the report which talked about “green infrastructure”, and Page No. 113 of the report which referred to six development scenarios, and felt these were good examples of jargon which members of the public may not be familiar.  The Chair suggested this could be addressed through the consultation exercises but the Member pointed out that some people would engage online rather than in-person and others would not be able to attend the events at all.  In response to a query, confirmation was provided that a glossary of terms would be included in the document prior to publication.  The Associate Director: Planning reminded Members that part of the delegation being sought from the Committee was for himself, in consultation with the Lead Member for Built Environment, to prepare diagrams and all six of the development scenarios could be shown easily on an A4 plan.  The final document for publication would include plans, maps and diagrams which could explain concepts far better than words. 

47.7           A Member acknowledged the time pressures to bring this document forward and expressed his gratitude to Officers.  In his view, although it was a consultation he questioned how far it needed to go to prompt residents to think about the issues they needed to tell the Council about – he would not have read the document and thought about pool cars unless prompted.  He asked whether the Communication teams from the three authorities were working together and suggested there should be greater reliance on them in terms of the appropriate style and language for the document.  He was unconcerned about the consultation period falling over the Christmas period as this could be a good opportunity to engage with people when they did not have as much to think about.  He asked which organisations, businesses and schools etc. had been lined up to assist with the consultation and whether there was a target for the level of engagement which could be monitored so that something could be done if the required amount of responses had not been reached mid-way through the consultation.  The Member noted that the document would be going to Council for approval and he asked that it be recirculated to Members as soon as there was any significant amendment so they had as much time as possible to feed into the process.  With regard to the iterations between now and publication, the Interim Planning Policy Manager explained that, in order to expedite the timetable, this document would be going to the Extraordinary Council meeting on 21 November 2023 in its current form and the recommendation to delegate authority to the Associate Director: Planning and the Lead Member for Built Environment would enable them to make those changes before publishing – Officers were not envisaging changes ahead of Council as a result of conversations today.  The Member indicated that he did not want to get to the point before Council where Members felt they had not had their say.  In response, the Chief Executive reiterated the astonishing amount of work from Officers to produce the document in accordance with the timescale – work had been done at pace and he reminded Members that Gloucester City Council had already approved the document.  It was intended to use video clips alongside the document to explain what each question was trying to achieve, which would go some way to assist with the concerns being raised.  A joint approach was being taken to communications across the three authorities which was being led by Tewkesbury Borough Council’s Associate Director: Transformation and he provided assurance that the amendments could be pulled together prior to publication.  The Interim Planning Policy Manager advised that a sub-team was currently putting together a consultation strategy and it was intended to take this to a joint meeting of the Planning Policy Reference Panel at the end of November for discussion.  He provided assurance that the consultation was going well beyond the statutory minimum and the communications platform would be capable of hosting videos and map-based solutions with built-in benefits of Artificial Intelligence (AI) to gather what people were saying and feed this back.  There would also be face to face sessions and facilitated sessions run on Teams.  It was intended to engage young people in a way they had not been before and work was ongoing with youth engagement teams on use of peer to peer techniques.  He undertook to provide a list of all of the proposed consultees for engagement so that Members could notify Officers of any gaps or organisations they were aware of which ought to be involved. 

47.8           Another Member was pleased to see education included but felt that the document could go further and asked whether secondary schools could do more to get families talking about it – the SLP would ultimately be something which affected people with school age children on a daily basis.  Similarly, the document said very little about leisure and sport – health was mentioned but not physical activity.  He expressed the view that it was important to use schools, colleges and universities to engage with young people.  University students had chosen to come to Gloucestershire, many of whom lived in student accommodation for at least a year, but were subsequently not staying in the area due to the lack of jobs and places to live - they were an essential part of this but would feel the document was not written for them.  If students were to engage in the consultation, there needed to be recognition of the Christmas break when the majority left the county.

47.9           A Member noted that Page No. 105, Paragraph 5.24 of the report stated “In total, this process resulted in XX sites being submitted and these are currently being assessed…” and she asked if the number of sites would be included prior to publication.  The Interim Planning Policy Manager advised that an enormous amount of evidence-based work, including a call for sites, was behind this document and he provided assurance that these placeholders would be populated by the end of December.  Page No. 106, Paragraph 5.33 of the report indicated that the evidence in the Gloucestershire Economic Needs Assessment had been prepared at a time when the implications of Brexit and COVID-19 had not been fully known, therefore, it was intended to review that evidence to inform subsequent stages of the SLP and a Member asked when that would be done.  The Interim Planning Policy Manager advised that the document did explain what the next steps would be but he reiterated the ambitious timetable to drive forward a draft plan to be ready for adoption in early 2025 which gave just over a year to update the entire evidence base.  There were project management tools in place for this specific piece of evidence so it was intended to update this during the first quarter of 2024/25.  All of this information would be hosted on a new website which was about to go live.  With regard to Page No. 108, Paragraph 5.40 of the report, which referenced the diverse range of economic sectors within Tewkesbury Borough, the Member was surprised there was no mention of agriculture, ecology, biology etc. and she felt these needed to be added. 

47.10         A Member raised concern at the lack of emphasis on building on brownfield land; Page No. 114, Paragraph 6.16 of the report included “supports maximum use of previously developed land and urban regeneration” as a benefit of urban concentrations but that was as far as it seemed to go. He questioned whether this needed to be drawn out more explicitly in the document; in his view, it was less intrusive to the environment to develop brownfield sites.  The Lead Member for Built Environment advised that Cheltenham Borough and Gloucester City had a limited space for development so density of development had to be greater than in other areas and that was possibly one reason.  The Interim Planning Policy Manager explained that the consultation presupposed there would be more effective use of brownfield land before looking at greenfield options.  Scenario 1 -Urban Concentrations was asking whether to go beyond the comfort zone in Cheltenham and Gloucester to supersize the brownfield contribution to the overall plan.  He undertook to review the wording to ensue this came across clearly in the document.  The Associate Director: Planning advised that, although the consultation document framed it as a choice between a number of broad brush options, or ‘scenarios’, in moving to a formative strategy, the reality would be an element of a number of these options. 

47.11         A Member recognised the considerable amount of work which had gone into the production of this detailed document; his concern was around the ability to quantify the written responses to the 31 questions and whether the strength of feeling would be captured.  For instance, the document could pose a question around whether people thought it was a good idea for the three authorities to work together but it was presented as if that had already been decided.  He appreciated the tight timescales but felt it was almost giving people the answers but then asking for their opinion and pointed out that people would be looking for maps.  He felt this needed to be a long term document – the Council should not be going through this process every three years if it was a 10 year plan – so it required a deep-dive and Council should not be presented with this as a final document on the basis that Gloucester City Council had already approved it.  In his view, the success of the consultation relied on how the three authorities brought forward the key issues.  The Lead Member for Built Environment pointed out that the Council had already voted in favour of working with the other two authorities on the SLP and establishing what was in the plan was a separate issue.  Officers had stated there was a concerted need to quantify responses and this would be presented to Members in due course.  As had already been mentioned, there was a joint Planning Policy Reference Panel meeting at the end of the month, which any Member could attend, where the issues would be debated – there had been considerable discussion and feedback at the first meeting so she urged Members to take that opportunity to express any strong opinions.  The Interim Planning Policy Manager reiterated that the document intended to get the ball rolling and the representations, both formal and informal, would be gathered together in the New Year to work out what this meant in terms of priorities in order to produce a preferred options document.  This would take place over a 12 month period and assurance was provided that adequate time had been allocated for this to be done properly.  The Member indicated that he would be uneasy voting to approve a document that included maps which he had not seen.  In response, the Chief Executive clarified they would be illustrative diagrams, rather than maps, which were indicative of the different proposals as opposed to geographical locations which could be perceived as where development was going to go.  He explained that the diagrams were due to be considered by the Chief Executives and Leaders of the three authorities at their next meeting, prior to consultation, as such, he suggested an amendment to the recommendation on the papers to delegate authority to the Chief Executive, in consultation with the Lead Member for Built Environment, to prepare those diagrams. 

47.12         It was proposed, seconded and