Minutes

3        NORTH LINCOLNSHIRE LOCAL DEVELOPMENT SCHEME REVISED OCTOBER 2021 – The Director: Business Development submitted an urgent report seeking approval for the timetable set out in the revision of the Local Development Scheme (October 2021).

Section 15 of the Planning and Compulsory Purchase Act 2004, as amended by section 111 of the Localism Act 2011 and the Housing and Planning Act 2016 required North Lincolnshire Council to prepare a timetable, known as the Local Development Scheme (LDS), setting the documents that would make up the Local Plan and the key dates (or milestones) for its preparation.  These included public consultation periods, submission to the Government for independent examination, the examination itself and adoption. The LDS also covered the preparation of the Community Infrastructure Levy (CIL) and Statement of Community Involvement (SCI). The LDS was attached at Appendix 1 to the report. 

The LDS must be made publicly available and kept up to date. Progress in meeting these key dates would be assessed in the Authority Monitoring Report, which was produced by the council. 

The documents that the LDS states would be produced were: 

•         North Lincolnshire Local Plan (2020 to 2038) 

•         Community Infrastructure Levy (CIL); and 

•         Statement of Community Involvement (SCI). 

The council was seeking to develop a new Local Plan covering the period 2020 to 2038. The Government was clear in the National Planning Policy Framework that local planning authorities should bring forward up to date local plans without delay.  Without an up to date local plan the council would not be able to defend controversial planning applications and maintain a five year land supply of housing sites.  Bringing forward the new plan would assist in delivering a five year land supply for North Lincolnshire. 

The LDS set out:

•         The planning policy documents that North Lincolnshire Council had already prepared;

•         The planning policy documents that North Lincolnshire Council intended to produce;

•         The subject area and geographical area of each of the proposed documents; and

•         The timetable for the preparation of the documents over the next three years.

The agreed LDS needed adjusting to reflect recent issues that had affected the remaining Local Plan timescales.  The main issues of relevance were the Covid 19 pandemic and the ‘MHCLG White Paper: Planning for the future’.  In order to ensure that the council was able to adequately adapt to these issues, it had been decided to put the Publication version of the Local Plan (Regulation 19) back to October 2021, which consequently resulted in all other timescales being put back accordingly to reflect this occurrence. This also required amendment to the CIL timescales.

Preparing the LDS also enabled the council to make financial provision for its statutory plan making role and the work that needed to be undertaken in order to deliver its statutory obligations.

Regulations require that the council specify a date that the LDS will come into effect.  It was proposed that the effective date for the new LDS was October 2021. 

The matter  ...  view the full minutes text for item 1.