Sites and policies plan part 2: site allocations plan examination

The Site Allocations Plan was submitted to the planning inspectorate for examination on 24 February 2017. Inspector Wendy Burden BA(Hons) DipTP MRTPI was appointed to conduct the examination.

The inspectors report has now been received.

Hearings were held at The Grand Atlantic Hotel, Beach Road, Weston-super-Mare on 16th, 17th and 18th May 2017.

Following the close of the hearings the Inspector produced a letter to us which identified the further work she considered we needed to undertake in relation to housing supply in order to make the plan sound. The council responded to this letter on the 20 July and undertook further site assessments to identify additional supply.

Our further site assessment can be found on the page below. 

At Executive Committee on 5 September 2017 an additional 22 housing sites comprising 821 dwellings were approved for inclusion in the plan to provide additional flexibility and choice and to address the Inspector’s concerns about delivery.

We wrote to the Inspector on the 6 September to explain the conclusions of our site assessments work and the resolution of the Executive Committee.

On the 8 September we sent the Inspector a full schedule of our proposed modifications to the submitted version of the plan. This included the addition of new housing sites and other changes discussed through the examination process and at the hearings. This included a re-write of the employment chapter, combining the policies into one, as well as re-wording of the undesignated green space policy to bring it in line with national policy and the deletion of a number of community use allocations. 

There are also numerous other consequential and factual updates, and site specific requirements that have been added at the request of statutory consultees. The list has been set out in the order of the policies within the plan and added to the examination library.

As there are a large number of changes proposed, we have produced a marked up copy of the submitted plan text and accompanying schedules. 

These show the original publication version text in black, with strike-through to mark proposed deletions, and red text to show where new text has been added. 

These documents have also been added to the examination library.

We have also updated the draft policies map to show the proposed changes alongside the rest of the designations.

The Inspector responded to the council on 11 September to request that the schedule of proposed modifications to the plan should now be subject to public consultation.

Consultation on the proposed modifications ran from Monday 18 September until Monday 30 October. You can view the consultation documents and comments we received online.

We have also published a report of the full responses, and a document summarising the main issues. These documents, along with full copies of the representations were sent to the Inspector on 10 November 2017.

The Inspector wrote back to the council on 15 November 2017. She proposed a further amendment to the employment policy and invited comments on this by 1 December 2017.

This consultation has now closed and the comments received have been forwarded to the Inspector.

In her letter the Inspector also asked the Council to do some further work on the list of modifications, to consolidate them where possible. This has been done, and two updated lists submitted to the examination.

Inspector’s documents

Council documents

Hearing statements

Council statements

Participants’ statements – Matter 1

Participants’ statements – Matter 2

Please note that number HS 2 12 has not been used.

Participants’ statements – Matter 3

Participants’ statements – Matter 4

None received

Participants’ statements – Matter 5

Please note that number HS 5 4 has not been used.

Participants’ statements – Matter 6

Further written representations

Statements of common ground

Examination documents

Submission documents

Programme officer

The programme officer responsible for assisting the Inspector with all aspects of the examination is Robert Young. The programme officer is independent of the council, and all communications for the Inspector should be sent to the programme officer.

Contact details

Robert Young
Programme officer, North Somerset Site Allocations Plan examination
Post: c/o Post Point 15, Town Hall, Walliscote Grove Road, Weston-Super-Mare, BS23 1uJ
Email: robert.young@n-somerset.gov.uk
Telephone: 07948 832 257