Issue - meetings

The Executive Member for Planning and Growth presented the Call for Sites Update and said that the Council agreed to a review of the District Plan in late 2023 and a revised timetable was agreed in October 2024.  In order to update the District Plan, the planning department needed to assemble a huge amount of evidence and a call for sites exercise was undertaken between July and September 2024.

The Executive Member for Planning and Growth said that landowners, developers, agents, and site promoters were invited to submit areas of land for the council to determine if they would be suitable for development. She said that submitting a site did not confirm that it would be selected for allocation in the District Plan and the report only detailed the outcome of the call for sites and presented the sites submitted.

Councillor Glover-Ward proposed that the recommendation in the report be supported. Councillor Swainston seconded the proposal.

Councillor Hart asked about weighting given to certain criteria when the planners were assessing the sites for development. 

Councillor Estop said that it was important to have a sound District Plan and the planning department would now move to produce Strategic Land Availability Assessment to look at the sites and determine the best sites to allocate for development. She said this was the best process for a spatial strategy and not speculative submission of planning applications for larger sites. She did not think that Full Council was the right place for oversight of the process and needed to be a Member led Committee.

Councillor Buckmaster said he had faith in the planning policy team and said there was an Executive sub-committee to look at the review of the District Plan. He said that this report was part of the District Plan process, and the vast number of sites would be filtered out following engagement with other bodies such as the County Council and Herts Highways. He said that the reason for asking his earlier question under Item 8 was that the proposed reorganisation of local government would put additional pressure on the process and felt that a conversation needed to be had with the government about what could realistically be achieved over the next few years.

Councillor Deering understood that this report was part of a process and knew that not all sites would be picked. He said that any communications with the public would be very important, and he called on the administration to do so. He said that the Conservative group would be supporting the recommendation but made it clear to residents that by supporting it, they were not taking any views on any particular sites.

Councillor McAndrew said that developing the District Plan was a massive task and said that there was a danger that some sites could come forward through the planning process to be developed.

Councillor Woollcombe said he welcomed the call for sites and asked whether there would be a similar call for infrastructure as the district was  ...  view the full minutes text for item 9

The Executive Member for Planning and Growth presented the Call for Sites report. She said that the Council agreed to a review of the District Plan in late 2023 and a revised timetable was agreed in October 2024. In order to update the District Plan, the planning department needed to assemble a huge amount of evidence and paragraph 3.5 – 3.6 of the report detailed the Call for Sites exercise.

The Executive Member for Planning and Growth said the Call for Sites took place between July and September 2024 and landowners, developers, agents and site promoters were invited to submit areas of land for the council to determine if they would be suitable for development. She said that submitting a site did not confirm that it would be selected for allocation in the District Plan and the report only detailed the outcome of the call for sites and presented the sites submitted.

The Executive Member for Planning and Growth said that 282 sites had been submitted and two further sites had been submitted since the report had been published which were included in the addendum. One site had been withdrawn which left 283 sites for submission.

The Executive Member for Planning and Growth said that the planning team will use the information submitted to move onto the next stage in the plan processes which was to form a Strategic Land Availability Assessment which would be reported back to Members.

Councillor Glover-Ward proposed that the recommendations in the report be supported. Councillor Wilson seconded the proposal.

Councillor Hopewell asked the Executive Member if she could expand on the consultation plans.

Councillor Glover-Ward referred to the visioning process that took place last year and said there would be engagement  starting in the Spring. She said that there would be two consultations on the District Plan; one in Autumn 2025 and one in summer 2026. A consultation in summer 2027 would look at the proposed sites.

Councillor McAndrew asked what the difference was between a gross site and a net site.

The Planning Policy, Design and Conservation Manager explained that gross referred to the total area of the site and net was the area that was capable of being developed.

Councillor McAndrew said that some of the gross and net figures were the same in the report.

The Planning Policy, Design and Conservation Manager said that the information in the report had come directly from site promoters and the team had not had the chance to verify the information.

Councillor McAndrew asked how many houses could be built on an acre of land.

The Planning Policy, Design and Conservation Manager said it would depend on density but the planning team worked with 30 per hectare.

Councillor McAndrew asked the Executive how they would reduce congestion and air pollution in Bishop’s Stortford in relation to these identified sites as development would compound the current problems.

The Executive Member for Planning and Growth said that the previous District Plan had 18 strategic sites from 288  ...  view the full minutes text for item 327