Thornbury group calls on council to hold emergency debate

The letter from Thornbury Residents Against Poorly Planned Development (TRAPP'D) was sent to Councillor Toby Savage last week.

It follows the decision of planning inspectors to reject the plan, which would see 105,000 homes built across the West of England, in its current form.

Both the original letter and Cllr Savage's response are reproduced in full below:

Dear Cllr Savage,

Need for emergency Council Meeting to consider Inspectors’ rejection of the JSP

We urge you to call an emergency meeting of the full Council to give proper debate on the Council’s response to the Inspectors’ letter rejecting the Joint Spatial Plan (JSP) in its current form.

In their letter of the 1st August the Inspectors conducting the Examination in Public (EiP) of the JSP state that they are “not persuaded that there is evidence to demonstrate that the Strategic Development Locations… have been selected … against reasonable alternatives, on a robust, consistent and objective basis” and that they “cannot conclude that … fundamental aspects of the plan are sound”. Their recommendation to the West of England Councils is that it would “be highly undesirable for the examination to continue for many more months for us then to conclude that fundamental soundness problems remain” and therefore that the Councils should re-consult with the community “in respect of a new plan”.

Put simply the JSP has been found out by the Inspectors that the plan is no more than a list of 12 large development locations without any logical linking strategy, other than that these are the ones the four authorities happen to prefer. It is our opinion that there can be no recovery from such a damning conclusion and yet, incredulously, early statements from the Councils talk about further research to be done and that the Inspectors have not yet heard all of the evidence etc. The Councils are behaving like the knight in Monty Python and the Holy Grail whose reaction to his complete dismemberment is that it’s only a scratch and that he should be allowed to fight on!

This Pythonesque state of denial is utterly irresponsible, but entirely in character with the consultation process conducted thus far. After the intolerable waste of five years’ work and a huge amount of public expenditure, we are left in limbo at the mercy of speculative developers who will now be lawyering up to go to appeal on their most lucrative greenfield opportunities.

We understand that South Gloucestershire Council is not due to meet again in full Council until October. However, this urgent crisis for the principle of planned development surely merits an emergency debate at the earliest opportunity. This would allow the full Council to scrutinise your administration’s response to this crisis; it would allow members of the public and action groups such as ours to put their viewpoint to the Council and, most importantly, it would allow the press to do their job and give full account to the public on what is going on here and expose the weakness of arguments.

If instead you choose to remain silent and hide behind platitudes, issued by the four Authorities, about being disappointed but undaunted, then you will be party to a failure of stewardship of public money and trust and you will be judged accordingly.

Yours sincerely,

Colin Gardner – Co Chairman Thornbury Residents Against Poorly Planned Development (TRAPP’D)

Dear Mr Gardner,

Thank you for your email dated 2 August, and your Open Letter dated 6 August 2019, setting our your advice on how to take the strategic planning of South Gloucestershire and the West of England forward in the light of the inspectors’ initial letter following the JSP hearings in July. I intend to take a considered approach which will start with a careful assessment of the inspectors’ advice once we have received their further letter which is promised shortly.

I would say that it can only be right that in considering how to best plan for the future growth and prosperity of our area, the West of England unitary authorities have first sought to bring forward a joint strategic vision for the area rather ruling out this option by having immediately started work on four separate Local Plans. Not only does this make sense given the close economic and social interdependencies of our region, but also in terms of demonstrating clear strategic leadership, to our local communities and government – particularly important when bidding for major infrastructure funding.

There is of course a cost to plan making, but the costs of the JSP project have to be seen in the context of the costs which would have otherwise had to be borne by each unitary authority separately as they commissioned, assessed and brought forward the evidence to support stand-alone Local Plans. For example, in place of the two consistently prepared Strategic Housing Market Assessments which are providing the evidence base of the JSP, we could have seen four separate commissions being undertaken, each with their own methodology, conclusions and costs. This would have opened up scope for challenge and delay through any examination process, as we saw when the Core Strategies were brought forward. It is right therefore that the unitary authorities have sought to rationalise and bring consistency to this process, and the vehicle for doing this has been the JSP, and so this cannot be held up as a failure in ambition.

There will I am sure be a number of options to consider and I have already asked officers to prepare a full briefing for me on these, looking at the issues both from the perspective of continuing to work in partnership with the other WoE UAs on a joint plan, but also to ensure the interests of South Gloucestershire residents are safeguarded.

I am of the view that we will need to determine which option is most appropriate to get us to the point where we have a statutory local plan in place guiding the future development of South Gloucestershire. However, until we have seen and considered the further letter from the inspectors due later this month we will not be in a position to reach an informed view. It would therefore be premature to schedule an additional meeting of our Full Council. It is worth noting that every Full Council meeting always includes a standing agenda item for West of England and regional issues and there will continue to be debates on this important matter moving forward.

Thank you again for contacting me and for your continued engagement with officer colleagues on the planning challenges facing Thornbury.

Yours sincerely,

Cllr Toby Savage Leader of the Council