Agenda item

Priority: Economic Growth

P42 – Objective 1 – Action b) Develop and launch the new Economic Development and Tourism Strategy – A Member noted that the new target date was September 2023 and he raised concern there was a pattern of this strategy being delayed. He felt the strategy needed to be introduced at the start of a calendar year so it was in place for the summer months; the September implementation date meant that opportunities to improve tourism would have been missed for a full 12 months.

The Head of Development Services explained that one of the reasons for the delay was because the Overview and Scrutiny Committee had identified it for review.  A workshop had been held with Members in November 2022 following which it had been agreed that the strategy should be approved by the new Council which would be responsible for taking it forward.  The Head of Development Services noted the point about tourism but indicated that it was an economic development strategy as well.  She provided assurance that work was underway and the findings of the economic assessment of the borough had been presented to the Committee.  The Head of Finance and Asset Management pointed out that, given the importance of the strategy for the borough, the Corporate Leadership Team had asked for it to be postponed to allow further work to be undertaken before it was brought back to Members.  It was hoped it would be possible to bring this to the Overview and Scrutiny Committee before September, following which it would need to go to the Executive Committee for approval.  In response to a query as to whether the strategy could be split in two to separate the economic development and tourism aspects, the Head of Development Services advised that the two were so integrated it would be impossible to pick them apart.

P43 – Objective 2 – Action a) Deliver employment land through allocating land in the Joint Strategic Plan and Tewkesbury Borough Plan – A Member noted that it was almost Spring, which was the target date for this action, yet the timetable was still under review so he asked when it was expected to go to the Executive Committee.

The Head of Development Services confirmed that the dates in the adopted Local Development Scheme would be met.  The Local Development Scheme had been reviewed and it was now intended to start in July 2023.  The reasons for this were two-fold with the first being the commitment to work in partnership and the funding agreement between the three authorities to ensure the necessary resources were available to take the Joint Strategic Plan forward; secondly, implementation of forthcoming planning reforms was a key issue.  Currently, in order to be examined under the existing National Planning Policy Framework, it would need to be submitted by June 2025 with all plans adopted by December 2026 - Members would be aware that examination of the Joint Core Strategy had taken three years so it was necessary to consider when would be best to submit and the implications of that.  The Member raised concern as to whether there would be enough time for the Joint Strategic Plan to be examined under the current planning framework in light of the length of the previous examination and the Head of Development Services explained that was only one element of what was being considered as it was also about what dates could realistically be achieved.  She provided assurance that the three authorities were committed to reviewing the Joint Strategic Plan as quickly as possible.

The Head of Development Services reminded Members that they were welcome to attend meetings of the Planning Policy Reference Panel which was the appropriate forum to raise any issues regarding the Joint Strategic Plan.

P45 – Objective 3 – Action b) To deliver projects as part of the Tewkesbury High Street Heritage Action Zone including Shop Front Scheme, Upper Floors Scheme and Traditional Skills – A Member noted that the Council was working with Historic England to reallocate funding this year and to cover grant funding in year 4 of the project and he asked if there was any risk to retaining the money if the action was delayed.

In response, the Head of Development Services advised that the Tewkesbury High Street Heritage Action Zone Programme Manager had been working with Historic England since the report had been produced and she was pleased to confirm that all of the money had now been allocated so work would continue for the final year of the programme.

Priority: Housing and Communities

P56-57 – Objective 3 – Action b) Adopt a revised charging schedule for the Community Infrastructure Levy (CIL) – A Member asked why it had taken longer than expected to look at this and whether there was an opportunity to add a standard inflationary annual increase pending a more thorough review.

The Head of Development Services advised that the current CIL charging structure was the first one which had been introduced and was a flat rate based on geographical location.  There were many ways the charging schedule could be reviewed and Officers had been looking at the various options; however, unfortunately, this often raised more questions.  It was intended to come back together as an Officer group to understand how the charges would work in reality.  A number of workshops had been held with the development industry to understand it from their perspective and it was important to ensure that whatever was put forward was robust.  In terms of a standard charge, she explained there were certain areas where land was much higher value so it was important to ensure that the opportunity to receive more money was not missed.  In response, the Member indicated that he was concerned that the delay with the new charging schedule meant that the Council was missing out on money and, given that costs had increased across the board, he felt it might be appropriate to increase CIL in line with inflation to take account of that whilst the review was undertaken.  The Head of Development Services indicated that she would check if this was possible following the meeting.

A Member indicated that he wished to make a general point regarding CIL and infrastructure as a whole which was linked to the Joint Strategic Plan.  He felt the main issue with the Joint Core Strategy was its failure to deliver the necessary infrastructure to go with the housing which resulted in developers having to pay to transport children to and from school and residents being unable to get appointments with doctors/dentists.  This needed to be considered when assessing the value of land.  In response, the Head of Development Services indicated that she was unable to comment on what had happened previously as she had joined the authority after the Joint Core Strategy had been adopted; however, she reminded Members that money was also available from Section 106 for many of the larger schemes so it was not just about CIL.  She clarified there was still a CIL rate in place currently so money continued to be collected despite the review; however, the amount collected would never be enough.  Notwithstanding this, she accepted the point which was being made in terms of the assessment being based on how easy it was to get the upfront infrastructure first.  The Member questioned what needed to be done to get to the point where basic infrastructure was being delivered for people who moved into the new developments and the Head of Development Services advised this was a problem across the country which had been acknowledged by the government in the planning reforms. One of the main issues was identifying responsibility as there were many different bodies e.g. Police, NHS, Highways Authority, County Council etc. which led to conflict about who was delivering and when.  The Member expressed the view that one of the major shortfalls of the Joint Core Strategy was having an urban extension strategy without providing infrastructure to areas of massive growth.  The majority of development had been in the suburbs of Gloucester where there was a seven-form entry shortfall of secondary school places and children were being shipped out to primary schools; as a Council it was necessary to look at where building would take place and phase it if necessary.  The infrastructure plan was an essential part of the Joint Strategic Plan and sites should not be allocated for development without having infrastructure foundations in place.  The Head of Development Services advised that the Joint Core Strategy had been examined under a previous National Planning Policy Framework system; under the existing one, deliverability must be demonstrated, for instance, if infrastructure was needed in the first five years it would be necessary to show how this would be funded and, if it was within the first 5-10 years a route map was required. 

A Member pointed out that infrastructure was often required after a development had been built when Section 106 money had run out and she asked what could be done to address that.  The Head of Development Services explained that it was not possible to go back to the developer to ask for more money once the Section 106 Agreement had been signed; however, there were neighbourhood CIL monies available which Parish Councils could use.

Another Member indicated that she was struggling to understand the issues around CIL and the Head of Development Services undertook to invite the CIL Manager to a future meeting to answer queries.

P59 – KPI 15 – Total new affordable housing properties delivered by tenure type – A Member raised concern that she could not tell if the figures were high or low and she asked what percentage of all properties completed were defined as affordable housing.

The Housing Services Manager undertook to provide a figure in terms of total delivery across the borough by way of comparison to give assurance the targets were being achieved.

P61-62 – KPI 17 – Percentage of major applications determined within 13 weeks or 16 weeks where an EIA is required, or alternative period agreed with the applicant, and KPI 19 – Percentage of major planning applications overturned at appeal – A Member questioned when the Overview and Scrutiny Committee would start to see improvement against these actions.  He recognised that progress was being made within Development Services but the Committee was required to assess performance based on the KPIs.

The Head of Development Services felt this was a fair comment; it had been a difficult few years but the team had been working hard to reduce the backlog of applications and contractors had been appointed to assist with that so she hoped Members would start to see smiley faces within the next six months. 

In terms of KPI 19, the Member asked whether the applications being overturned on appeal were determined by Officers under delegated authority or by the Planning Committee and he expressed the view that this should be made clear within the report in order for Members to understand what was happening and to address the root cause.  The Head of Development Services confirmed it was a mixture of both delegated and Committee decisions.  This was a very important indicator as, if the national threshold of 10% was exceeded, it would be highlighted to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities (DLUHC) – one application was the equivalent of 1.5% so it would not take many overturns for the percentage to increase above the threshold.  She stressed the importance of ensuring there were solid grounds for refusal so they could be defended on appeal.  She undertook to separate delegated decisions and Committee decisions within this KPI going forward. 

P63 – KPIs 21, 22, 23 and 24 – Planning Enforcement – A Member congratulated the team on the improvement in planning enforcement.

The Head of Development Services undertook to pass this on to the team.

Priority: Garden Communities

P75 – Objective 1 – Action b) Prepare a Strategic Framework Plan (SFP) (previously named Design Manual) and P76 – Objective 1 – Action f) Work with partners to maximise sustainable development principles and low carbon technologies as part of the Garden Communities programme – A Member noted there seemed to be a connection between the SFP and the Garden Communities programme and he asked for clarity on which was reliant on which as he was under the impression that the SFP would need to be completed before action f) could be delivered yet the target date for the SFP was after the sustainable strategies.

The Garden Town Programme Director confirmed that sustainability was part of the SFP and it was intended it would be delivered by May 2023 to align the two objectives.  The Member went on to query why this had been delayed and was informed it was due to the nature of the work involved and the engagement needed to make it robust.  The key thing was ensuring the May timeframe was achieved in order to feed into the Joint Strategic Plan process; this had always been the intention so the delay was not a major issue in terms of overall deliverability.

P75 – Objective 1 – Action c) Finalise the design and launch the construction phase of the Ashchurch and Northway Bridge Over Rail – A Member asked for clarity as to whether there was still a potential way forward following the loss of the Judicial Review.

The Garden Town Programme Director advised that the reality was that, without planning permission, it was not possible to proceed with the programme and the knock on effect of that was the potential problems with grant funding and the time schedule for drawing that down.  Whilst the judgement quashed the planning permission, it was being assessed in terms of whether it would be possible to resubmit the planning application and discussions were taking place with Homes England regarding the funding.  He could not give Members any further information at this stage other than to provide assurance that Officers were in dialogue and that the loss of planning permission meant that it was not possible to continue with the plan of action e.g. going out to tender etc.  The Member felt that this commentary could have been provided in the report and the Garden Town Programme Director accepted this point but advised that more information was included later in the document.  In response to a query regarding what happened to the grant money in the event the bridge was not built, the Garden Town Programme Director advised that a lot of money had been spent in terms of design and this was part of the discussion taking place with the Homes England Housing Infrastructure Fund Team.  The Member questioned whether the bridge could have been delivered within budget in any case. The Garden Town Programme Director advised that, whilst it had not gone out to tender, the estimated cost was £11.3m which exceeded the £8.1m working budget so, although no documents had been signed, there was an agreement in place with the developer to fund the difference.