JSP - "An enormous amount of work"

As I noted in my post of the 6th September, the much anticipated more detailed letter from the Inspector's presiding over the JSP has today been published (a link is provided at the end of this article.

As the interim letter suggested the Inspector's have substantial concerns with the JSP and such concerns go to the heart of what the Council's have proposed. The Inspector's letter highlights the following key issues:

1. the overall spatial strategy;
2. the process and principles by which SDLs are assessed and selected;
3. the plan’s detailed policy requirements in respect of SDLs and/or potential allocation of some/all SDLs;
4. the approach to, and policy steer on, the purpose, amount and distribution of non-strategic growth; and
5. the plan’s proposals for overall employment land provision if, as we believe is likely, we were to conclude that policy 4 is not sound, including proposals for, or the policy steer on, growth at Bristol Port and Bristol Airport if, as we believe is likely, we were to conclude that the plan is not currently sound in these particular respects.

OAN

Although not listed as one of the five key issues the Inspector's confirm they have reached no conclusion on whether the 102,800 is sound. They highlight that if it is a significant underestimate then such an uplift would have serious implications for other aspects of the plan.

1. Overall Spatial Strategy

The Inspectors concerns (Paras 3-13) is in my opinion the most fundamental issue for the JSP. Essentially the Council's have made a bottom-up summation in formulating the "spatial strategy" i.e. Total housing need = (i) existing local plan commitments + (ii) assumptontions on urban living and non-strategic growth + (iii) anticipated delivery at each SDL and the notion that any identified SDL could meet the needs of the West of England region despite the geographical differences.

The Inspectors are not persuaded this is a sound approach and despite having raised similar concerns at the outset of the examination clearly advocate an approach which identifies a more traditional spatial strategy distribution.

2. Process and Principles of SDL's

Equally, in the absence of such a distribution the Inspector's cannot conclude whether any of the selected SDL's have been identified in an objective manner when considered against reasonable alternatives as there is an absence of a framework in which to assess the relative alternatives. It is the case that and SDL identified in north South Gloucestershire cannot meet the needs arising in south North Somerset. Accordingly, it is impossible to make a proper comparison between alternatives in the absence of a set of criteria which is robust, objective and prioritised.

This leads onto associated issues with SDL's identified in the Green Belt. Green Belt is the highest policy protection and should only be released where exceptional circumstances exist.  The Inspector's do not say those exceptional circumstances are not present but that you can only reach such a conclusion if there is a spatial strategy which informs the need for development to be steered to certain settlements.

 3.  Process and Principles of the SDL

The Inspectors make no conclusions on individual SDL's but are clear that the principles which the Councils have identified are too onerous when the SDL's are not allocations and not clearly defined. The solution is either remove such principles or for the JSP to make specific allocation. Again this is an issue which has been highlighted on a number of occasions.

4. Non-strategic growth

As currently drafted the JSP would not preclude non-strategic growth beyond the 3,400 identified. Indeed the Councils confirmed at the hearings the non-strategic element could grow if other elements of the strategy fell away. Therefore the Inspector's are concerned that in the absence of a spatial strategy this approach could result in unsustainable patterns of growth.

5. Employment Land

The issue here is that on the one hand the Councils state that existing employment land is sufficient to deliver both the strategic employment needs and the anticipated jobs growth over the plan period but at the same time proposes significant new emploment land provision at most of the SDL's.

Conclusions

Whilst what happens next is for the Councils to determine it is fairly clear the Inspector's position as set out at Paragraph 42:

"Ultimately, we envisage that the work likely to be necessary goes way beyond what could be reasonably addressed by main modifications to the submitted JSP and, in fact, would be tantamount to the preparation of a new plan."

Given the scale of the issues it is not possible to simply patch up the plan, mainly because this would a) take a long time and require the production of lots more evidence and consultation b) transparency i.e. Councils would seek only to justify existing position and c) the plan then the subject of examination would be so significantly different to current that it wouldn't be suitable to do so.

In my opinion the merits of a sub-regional plan are well made and if done objectively and properly then it has real benefit for all. However, at present this isn't the case and becuase of the fundamental flaws there is a real risk that those locations which are merited will be significantly delayed as the Councils need to go back to square one and start again!

Inspector's detailed letter