Thank you to those who responded on a ‘new’ Parking SPD and a ‘revised’ Development Contributions SPD which closed on 4th February 2020. A further consultation referred to in our last message to members referred to a wider exercise titled by the Council as “Creating our vision, objectives and the direction for development management policies”. This is to enable them to take the process to a final phase in the autumn with the Local Plan that it formulates for the next 15 years. That will in turn to go to the Government Inspector after a further consultation. It may not then be easy to amend to any great extent and the importance of this consultation is that it is almost the last chance for residents to make their wider views known. This consultation closes on Monday 9th March 2020.

The Cobham Green Belt and Cobham Heritage Trust’s Planning Team have attended workshops and have reviewed what the Council have suggested as the emerging key issues policies and challenges. To assist members in answering the questions posed by the Council in the consultation it has drawn up some suggested responses as below.

The Council say it is aiming for 'good' growth in our borough. After inspection and adoption, the Local Plan will guide decisions on whether or not planning applications should be granted permission.

The Council say that the consultation is not about housing numbers and the Green Belt. They point to there having already been 2 consultations on that. But it is arguable that the current exercise on “Vision” should have been undertaken before housing numbers were looked at. Our planning team considers that in any event the Council must again take note that in consultations, the public across the Borough overwhelmingly chose option 4 - safeguarding the Green Belt.

In the current consultation, the Council provide a huge amount of material that is relevant, including policies at national and Surrey level. It is difficult for our planning team to summarise all that for you. Remember however that the feedback from residents and stakeholders (such as developers) has to be considered. The Council, in posing a series of questions for residents to respond to, themselves identify what it considers important.

The process of responding can take some time but the team feels important to persevere if you feel able. To review the background you can go to

https://consult.elmbridge.gov.uk/consult.ti/system/login?nextURL=%2Fconsult%2Eti%2Fvisobjdir%2FjoinGroup

To go straight to the Council’s questions you should go to

https://consult.elmbridge.gov.uk/consult.ti/visobjdir/viewCompoundDoc?docid=11318132&partid=11319060&sessionid=&voteid=&clientuid=7957921

It is worth identifying at this stage that there is an opportunity at the end of questions posed to upload a file but the team believes it would be best to answer the questions in the boxes provided if you feel able.

The Questions with Comments document below, shows the council’s list of issues which they present for their questions, annotated with comments from the planning team in red. It is hoped these lists and our comments in red will assist members in formulating their own responses. The Cobham Green Belt and Cobham Heritage Trust will be writing in to make the points identified in red on the document.

  Download/View Questions with Comments

 

The Elmbridge Local Plan has been delayed until later this year. However, in support for the main local plan three further short consultations have been announced.

These consultations are now taking place on three separate topics:

  1. A ‘new’ Parking SPD (Supplementary Planning Document) to support the existing Local Plan, which consists of the Core Strategy 2011 and the Development Management Plan 2015. Closing date 4th February 2020.
  2. A ‘revised’ Development Contributions SPD to support the existing Local Plan in particular Core Strategy (2011) policies CS13: Thames Basin Heaths Special Protection Area, CS21: Affordable housing and CS28: Implementation and Delivery. Closing date 4th February 2020.
  3. Seeking views on EBC’s vision, objectives and the direction for development management policies as part of the preparation of a new Local Plan. Runs from 27th February 2020 to 9th March 2020.

In conjunction with the Cobham Conservation and Heritage Trust, we will be advising people on the vision consultation (item 3) in the course of the coming weeks.

For the two SPDs presently under consultation, given the complexity of the documents under consideration and their attachments, the intricacy of the process and the limited time given, the Cobham Heritage planning team agreed to send in a letter summarising our views on each consultation (see letter links below).

  1. Cobham Heritage Letter Ref: Parking Supplementary Planning Document SPD Consultation
  2. Cobham Heritage Letter Ref: Development Contributions SPD Consultation

There are many such SPD’s that together with national policies and the Local Plan itself are important when judging planning applications. While some of these consultations are aimed in the first instance at ‘managing’ the existing Local Plan the results will play a role in the development and implementation of the new Local Plan. Accordingly we consider these consultations similarly to that of the Local Plan itself.

We would recommend you look at and write in support of these letters or make your own comments, either by email (This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.), as we have, or via the consultation website (see links below). Please note that such letters of support and/or comments need to be sent before 4th February 2020. We are sorry for the short notice but the consultation period was short.

Consultation Links:

Parking SPD - https://consult.elmbridge.gov.uk/consult.ti/parking/consultationHome

Development Contributions SPD https://consult.elmbridge.gov.uk/consult.ti/SPDs/consultationHome

For your reference the documents EBC wish you to comment upon can be downloaded from the following links:

  1. Parking SPD - https://consult.elmbridge.gov.uk/gf2.ti/f/1104066/61544453.1/PDF/-/Parking_SPD_draft_for_consultation.pdf and
  2. Developer Contributions SPD - https://consult.elmbridge.gov.uk/gf2.ti/f/1102434/61338693.1/PDF/-/Draft_Development_Contributions_SPD__final.pdf 

 

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