Issue and Options 2023

Nothing chosen

Q-B3: Please select the option which is most appropriate for South Warwickshire A consistent approach should be applied across the Local Plan Area in order for the Local Plan to provide a clear basis for determining planning applications. There is no national requirement for Strategic Landscape Areas to be in place. There is an opportunity for the evidence base to include Landscape Character Assessments for the whole Local Plan area as an alternative. Q-B5: Please select the option which is most appropriate for South Warwickshire Option B5a: Explore and pursue an integrated Environmental Net Gain Policy Any policy or policies relating to the operation and securing of environmental net gain need to be fully evidenced and the implications of such policies on local plan viability need to understood. Crest Nicholson reserves the right to comment on the suitability of this as an approach once more information is made available. Q-B6: Should the South Warwickshire Local Plan introduce Wildbelt designations? “Wildbelt” is not a recognised land use defined in the NPPF which Local Plans need to accommodate. Crest Nicholson requests that clarification is provided on whether the intention is that such ‘Wildbelt’ sites would be allocated, with the approval of a willing landowner, in order to also deliver offsite BNG, carbon offsetting and other mitigation requirements that are not able to be accommodated on development sites. Q-B8.1: Do you agree that the plan should include a policy avoiding development on the best and most versatile agricultural land, unless it can be demonstrated that the harm to agricultural land is clearly outweighed by the benefit of development? As set out in footnote 58 of the NPPF ‘where significant development of agricultural land is demonstrated to be necessary, areas of poorer quality land should be preferred to those of a higher quality’. As such any such policy should refer specifically to ‘significant’ development. It is however questioned whether this policy needs to be included given that the approach to development on agricultural land is already included in the NPPF. It is contended that the Local Plan should not include any provisions relating to development on agricultural land that go over and above those included within the NPPF.

No

The NPPF requires Local Planning Authorities (LPAs) to plan for, and allocate sufficient sites to deliver the strategic priorities of the area (National Planning Policy Framework (2021) paragraph 23). Crest Nicholson considers that the most efficient way for the South Warwickshire LPAs to achieve this is to progress a single local plan, as opposed to a two part plan. This would ensure that there is suitable confidence that the infrastructure to deliver all housing supply is available and has been suitably planned for. It is not considered to be either necessary or efficient for the emerging Local Plan to be split into two parts. It should also be noted that the proposals being mooted through the Levelling Up and Regeneration Bill seek to speed up the Plan-making process and do not align with the sort of two-part approach being sought by the South Warwickshire authorities. The production of a single Local Plan would therefore be the simplest and most transparent option for enabling the South Warwickshire authorities to provide certainty and demonstrate at the earliest opportunity that it has an up-to-date deliverable Development Plan that can achieve the NPPF allocation and land supply requirements, backed up with a robust plan for the delivery of infrastructure.