Interactive webcast player

Growth, Infrastructure & Housing Select Committee
Friday, 10th July 2026 at 10:00am

 
Share this agenda point
  1. Cllr Simon Rouse
Share this agenda point
Share this agenda point
  1. Sally Moore
  2. Cllr Simon Rouse
Share this agenda point
  1. Cllr Stuart Wilson
  2. Cllr Robin Stuchbury
  3. Cllr Simon Rouse
Share this agenda point
Share this agenda point
  1. Cllr Simon Rouse
Share this agenda point
  1. Mr Steve Bambrick
  2. Richard Ambrose
  3. Ms. Hannah Joyce
  4. Ms. Charlotte Morris
  5. Cllr Simon Rouse
  6. Cllr Steven Broadbent
  7. Cllr Peter Strachan
  8. Mr Steve Bambrick
  9. Cllr Simon Rouse
  10. Cllr Jonathan Waters
  11. Mr Steve Bambrick
  12. Cllr Jonathan Waters
  13. Mr Steve Bambrick
  14. Cllr Simon Rouse
  15. Cllr Jonathan Waters
  16. Mr Steve Bambrick
  17. Cllr Jonathan Waters
  18. Cllr Simon Rouse
  19. Cllr Steven Broadbent
  20. Mr Steve Bambrick
  21. Cllr Simon Rouse
  22. Cllr Robin Stuchbury
  23. Mr Steve Bambrick
  24. Cllr Robin Stuchbury
  25. Mr Steve Bambrick
  26. Cllr Simon Rouse
  27. Cllr Jackson Ng
  28. Mr Steve Bambrick
  29. Cllr Michael Collins
  30. Richard Ambrose
  31. Cllr Michael Collins
  32. Richard Ambrose
  33. Cllr Steven Broadbent
  34. Mr Steve Bambrick
  35. Cllr Michael Collins
  36. Mr Steve Bambrick
  37. Cllr Stuart Wilson
  38. Mr Steve Bambrick
  39. Cllr Simon Rouse
  40. Cllr Steven Broadbent
  41. Cllr Stuart Wilson
  42. Cllr Steven Broadbent
  43. Cllr Mark Roberts
  44. Mr Steve Bambrick
  45. Cllr Mark Roberts
  46. Mr Steve Bambrick
  47. Richard Ambrose
  48. Cllr Mark Roberts
  49. Richard Ambrose
  50. Cllr Dean Field
  51. Cllr Simon Rouse
  52. Mr Steve Bambrick
  53. Cllr Dean Field
  54. Cllr Simon Rouse
  55. Cllr Dean Field
  56. Mr Steve Bambrick
  57. Cllr Alex Collingwood
  58. Mr Steve Bambrick
  59. Cllr Simon Rouse
  60. Cllr Frances Kneller
  61. Mr Steve Bambrick
  62. Cllr Steven Broadbent
  63. Cllr Simon Rouse
  64. Cllr Steven Broadbent
  65. Ms. Charlotte Morris
  66. Cllr Simon Rouse
  67. Cllr Jackson Ng
  68. Cllr Simon Rouse
  69. Ms. Charlotte Morris
  70. Cllr Alex Collingwood
  71. Cllr Simon Rouse
  72. Mr Steve Bambrick
  73. Cllr Steven Broadbent
  74. Cllr Simon Rouse
  75. Cllr Jonathan Waters
  76. Cllr Simon Rouse
  77. Mr Steve Bambrick
  78. Cllr Stuart Wilson
  79. Mr Steve Bambrick
  80. Cllr Robin Stuchbury
  81. Cllr Simon Rouse
Share this agenda point
  1. Cllr Simon Rouse
  2. Cllr Robin Stuchbury
  3. Mr Steve Bambrick
  4. Cllr Robin Stuchbury
  5. Mr Steve Bambrick
  6. Cllr David Moore
  7. Mr Steve Bambrick
  8. Cllr David Moore
  9. Cllr Steven Broadbent
  10. Cllr Jonathan Waters
  11. Cllr Steven Broadbent
  12. Cllr Jonathan Waters
  13. Cllr Steven Broadbent
  14. Cllr Alex Collingwood
  15. Mr Steve Bambrick
  16. Cllr Alex Collingwood
  17. Mr Steve Bambrick
  18. Cllr Michael Bracken
  19. Mr Steve Bambrick
  20. Cllr Jackson Ng
  21. Cllr Steven Broadbent
  22. Mr Steve Bambrick
  23. Cllr Mark Roberts
  24. Mr Steve Bambrick
  25. Cllr Mark Roberts
  26. Cllr Stuart Wilson
  27. Mr Steve Bambrick
  28. Cllr Simon Rouse
  29. Cllr Stuart Wilson
  30. Cllr Simon Rouse
  31. Mr Steve Bambrick
  32. Cllr Michael Bracken
  33. Cllr Michael Collins
  34. Mr Steve Bambrick
  35. Cllr Simon Rouse
  36. Cllr Alex Collingwood
  37. Mr Steve Bambrick
  38. Cllr Robin Stuchbury
  39. Mr Steve Bambrick
  40. Cllr Robin Stuchbury
  41. Mr Steve Bambrick
  42. Cllr Jonathan Waters
  43. Cllr Steven Broadbent
  44. Cllr Stuart Wilson
  45. Mr Steve Bambrick
  46. Cllr Michael Collins
  47. Mr Steve Bambrick
  48. Cllr Michael Collins
  49. Cllr Simon Rouse
  50. Mr Steve Bambrick
  51. Mr Steve Bambrick
  52. Cllr Steven Broadbent
  53. Cllr Simon Rouse
  54. Cllr Frances Kneller
  55. Mr Steve Bambrick
  56. Mr Steve Bambrick
  57. Cllr Robin Stuchbury
  58. Mr Steve Bambrick
  59. Cllr Steven Broadbent
  60. Cllr Simon Rouse
Share this agenda point
  1. Cllr Simon Rouse
  2. Cllr Stuart Wilson
  3. Mr Steve Bambrick
  4. Cllr Stuart Wilson
  5. Mr Steve Bambrick
  6. Cllr Simon Rouse
  7. Cllr David Moore
  8. Mr Steve Bambrick
  9. Cllr Alex Collingwood
  10. Richard Ambrose
  11. Cllr Simon Rouse
  12. Mr Steve Bambrick
  13. Cllr Steven Broadbent
  14. Cllr Jackson Ng
  15. Mr Steve Bambrick
  16. Cllr Jackson Ng
  17. Mr Steve Bambrick
  18. Cllr Michael Collins
  19. Mr Steve Bambrick
  20. Cllr Simon Rouse
  21. Cllr Robin Stuchbury
  22. Mr Steve Bambrick
  23. Cllr Steven Broadbent
  24. Cllr Mark Roberts
  25. Richard Ambrose
  26. Mr Steve Bambrick
  27. Cllr Mark Roberts
  28. Mr Steve Bambrick
  29. Cllr Frances Kneller
  30. Mr Steve Bambrick
  31. Cllr Simon Rouse
  32. Mr Steve Bambrick
  33. Cllr Robin Stuchbury
  34. Mr Steve Bambrick
  35. Cllr Robin Stuchbury
  36. Mr Steve Bambrick
  37. Cllr Steven Broadbent
  38. Cllr Michael Collins
  39. Mr Steve Bambrick
  40. Cllr Steven Broadbent
  41. Cllr Simon Rouse
  42. Cllr Alex Collingwood
  43. Cllr Stuart Wilson
  44. Cllr Robin Stuchbury
  45. Cllr Simon Rouse
  46. Cllr Jonathan Waters
  47. Cllr Simon Rouse
Share this agenda point
  1. Cllr Simon Rouse
Share this agenda point
Share this agenda point
  1. Webcast Finished

uh... speech in if the growth in church and housing uh... select committee
Cllr Simon Rouse - 0:00:08
welcome uh... council members offices and members of the public that we
watching
the webcast and
can i just remind everyone to turn a microphone on each time they speak to
switch off when they finish speaking
to usual webcast picks up uh... all of their comments all of your comments
so i'd soon number one uh...

1 Appointment of Vice-Chairman

is appointment of vice chairman i'd like to declare that uh... council david
more is appointed as vice chairman for ensuring council year
directions

2 Apologies for Absence/Changes in Membership

so you've got me or just absence and changes to mention
extremely perceived policies from counsellors penny tracy and caroline
cornell
Sally Moore - 0:00:46
counsellors jim wilson is attending as a substitute for council adjacent
and cast alex coming would for council cornell
counsellors hazel off the here it's sure i shot i
Patrick Feeley are no longer members of the committee.
Councillors Dean Field, Francis Neller and Penny Drayton have joined the committee.
Thank you.

3 Declarations of Interest

Cllr Simon Rouse - 0:01:09
Item number 3 are declarations of interest.
Are there any personal or community interests that members want to declare?
Councillor Haynes.
Chairman, I would like to declare I have a live planning application for my own home.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Cllr Stuart Wilson - 0:01:28
Councillor Wilson. Thank you Chairman it's in my register of interest but when
we come to infrastructure I just want to declare that I'm a member of the
Buckinghamshire Milton Keynes Fire Authority and they are one of the
consortees on the infrastructure elements of that so I just wanted to
Cllr Robin Stuchbury - 0:01:47
point that out. Councillor Slattery. Ditto on the member of the Buckinghamshire Fire Authority
That's your good self.
And I think all the other decorations are in the decorations of interest
and have been written two years ago.
So I think I'm covered on those. Thank you.
Cllr Simon Rouse - 0:02:04
And for good order then, I'll note that I'm also a member of the Buckinghamshire Wilton Keynes Fire Authority.
Good. Thank you very much.
That moves us on to item number four, minutes of the previous meeting.
And I was happy to approve the minutes of the meeting held on the 17th of March
and also the meeting held on the 20th of May.
Okay.

4 Minutes of the Previous Meeting

That moves to item number five, Chairman's update.

5 Chairman's Update

I'm just going to use this section just to set out how we're going to try and navigate
through this morning.
So, obviously, the main item on the agenda is the local plan, and it's obviously going
to be one of the most important things that we cover as a committee.
There's a huge amount of material for us to get through, and so, therefore, I'm just going
set out an approach through this, through the meeting, um, that, uh, hopefully would
enable members to, uh, be able to focus their questions. So when we get to that item, I
will invite firstly, uh, the leader of the council, Councillor Steve Broadbent to speak,
uh, and then I think a combination of cabinet office, cabinet members and officers can then
take us through a presentation for about 30 minutes on the local plan. What we will then
do is move into questions and I think it's important particularly for the public to understand
that our role as a committee today is to look at the local planner and overall Buckinghamshire
level. So what we won't be doing and I've asked members to observe this is getting into
individual sites or discussion on individual sites during the meeting because that I think
is not the purpose of our session today. Members have had local ward sessions to look at those
sites, and there is also a town and parish council briefing session next week on the
16th for local parishes and town councils to explore the plan.
So the discussion will be at an overall Buckinghamshire level.
The key area that we will focus on first are the soundness tests and the overall strategy.
Having then been through that, we will look at infrastructure, and within infrastructure
We will cover roads, sewerage, health capacity, education capacity, et cetera.
We will then cover employment and high streets.
We will then cover affordable housing and social housing.
We will then look at data centres.
We will then look at town centre density and car parking.
And then we will look at gypsy and traveller sites.
And then we may well come back to the soundness tests, having been through all of those.
So, that's the way that we will navigate through the session, just for the benefit of everybody.
Okay.

6 Public Questions

That moves us to item number six, which is public questions.
And I believe we have a public question from Mike Chapman, who is the chairman of Newton -Longfield
Parish Council.
We're just going to move a mic to you, just about the second.
Right, first of all, thank you very much for giving me the opportunity to speak.
You've had my written question.
I'm going to start, though, by making a point, if I can.
I had a call with Jilly Jordan last night, our ward councillor, who was absolutely adamant
that the number of houses in our residential sites had been reduced.
Couldn't understand this.
We've worked out, we think, why.
Because some of the, two of the sites that are mentioned in the draught local plan have
been mislabeled as being Newton Lees and not Newton Longwell.
This, I'm afraid, really hits our faith in the quality of the work that has been done
in the plan and does make me seriously question the soundness of it.
But anyway, right, on to the question, which is related.
So we obviously, after this question was written in a bit of a hurry because we only had – we
and the local plan appears to have appeared online a little bit later.
But we have to seriously question the purpose of the Buckinghamshire local plan site consultation exercise
which was held in February and March of this year,
because it appears that absolutely no account has been taken of the feedback provided.
Newton Longwell Parish was previously down for four housing sites, totalling 424 dwellings,
plus a 20 pitch traveller site.
It appears that we now have a further housing site added and the total number of dwellings
has increased by 56 % to 660.
This parish council and our residents submitted comments pointing out that we already have
a 1 ,855 dwelling development underway at Sorden Place, which was a strategic development policy
in the develop.
that our local roads, including the A421, are struggling to cope with traffic, much
of it associated with neighbouring Milton Keynes. Local services, including those provided
by the NHS, are also significantly overstretched. Now, the points that we had made included
pointing out where issues which, according to the site assessment spreadsheet that was
circulated, had been enough to rule out sites in other neighbouring communities, appeared
to have been ignored. Things like unacceptable intrusion into the local
countryside. Now to exacerbate this situation further the housing sites
proposed for the adjoining parishes of Stoke Hammond to the south and Wadden to
the north have seen the number of suggested new dwellings increase from
4122 to 6285 from February March through to now. Again a 52 % uplift. Then there's
Beachhampton nest site which is another 3 ,200 dwellings in this area. Much of the
traffic generated from that new housing in nearby parishes will
inevitably transit through Newton Longville. On top of this Newton Longville
is almost certainly facing a major infrastructure project in the form of
East West Rail's proposed train maintenance depot with construction work
including excavation work requiring the removal off -site of hundreds of
thousands of cubic metres of soil and I'd like to refer and this is extra high only if this only occurred to me last night
Councillor broadband very kindly on the 30th of January of this year in
His state in the statement that he made following east the announcement about East Wales rails proposal to build a train maintenance
Depot within our parish wrote Newton Longville is a rural and unspoilt community with limited infrastructure
That point seems to have not been taken into account
with what we're looking at now, which is within our parish and the adjoining
parish's 12 ,000 additional new houses. How is Newton Longville Parish Council
meant to persuade residents that Buckinghamshire Council is protecting their
interests when we can see no evidence that this unitary authority has taken
into account the feedback on the proposed local plan sites that was
submitted in March? How are we meant to encourage people to participate in this
submissions to date have been clearly either been ignored or Buckinghamshire Council does
not care.
Thank you very much.
Thank you, Mr. Chapman, for your question.
Cllr Simon Rouse - 0:09:38
And just to confirm that will be entered into the minutes for the meeting and to be on the
public record.
And just to outline for you and for everybody watching on the webcast, those issues that
you've raised in your question.
So the consistency of the approach to the site allocation from the site strategy consultation
earlier in the year, the approach in terms of how the feedback from that consultation
phase where I think we've seen in the papers there are over 10 ,000 responses through that
consultation phase, how those responses have been addressed, and the approach to the next
phase of consultation and how public engagement will be maximised will all be key elements
that this committee will be exploring during the session today.
And so I hope as you watch the committee go through the discussion you'll see that we're
exploring and testing those exact questions and issues that you're raising.
Obviously there's quite a specific set of questions around Newton Longville there.
What will happen is that next week there is a town and parish council briefing, which
is an opportunity for the parish council to engage in the process and the discussion.
and I'm sure that officers and indeed your ward members, you mentioned Councillor Gillie
Jordan there, will be engaged in wanting to talk about the specifics for Newton Longville
and that will be as part of the next phase in the next few days.
So thank you very much for your question and hopefully you'll watch us go through some
of those key topic areas over the course of the next couple of hours.

7 The Local Plan for Buckinghamshire

Okay, that moves us on to item number seven, which is the local plan for Buckinghamshire.
Can I welcome the leader, Councillor Broadbent, Cabinet Member for Planning, Councillor Shracken,
and Deputy Cabinet Member for Planning, Councillor Bracken.
I can also welcome the officers.
Can I ask the officers just to introduce themselves for everyone?
Thank you, Chairman.
Steve Bambrick, I'm the Corporate Director for Planning, Growth and Sustainability.
Mr Steve Bambrick - 0:11:40
Richard Ambrose - 0:11:41
Richard Ambrose and service director for planning and environment
Ms. Hannah Joyce - 0:11:45
Ms. Charlotte Morris - 0:11:49
Cllr Simon Rouse - 0:11:56
Thank you and thank you for the papers that you submitted to us it's been a busy few days for members
But we've read them all and so looking forward to discussion. I think I'm handing over to council broadband to open up
Cllr Steven Broadbent - 0:12:09
Thank you, Chair, and thank you, members, for your time today.
This local plan, I think, is useful if I just give it some context.
Here we are just on the verge of commencing what's called the Regulation 19 consultation,
but I recognise for people watching that they may not be fully aware of the context of how
we're into this place, and I think that would be a useful exercise.
This is one of the largest local plans that will be going before the Inspector in this
tranche of submissions because there are other councils around the country who are dealing
with their local plans.
It is a huge challenge, both in the here and now, to come forward with what's termed as
a compliant local plan, as well as a challenge over its 20 -year term to then deliver a local
plan given the impact it will have on the county.
What I think is buried in those 700 and odd pages
as one of a number of very important comments
are the fact that in early 2025, the numbers jumped from a local plan that
would have required around low 60 ,000s of houses,
but it jumped by 43 % up to 91 and a bit thousand.
As a result of government making changes to their formulas,
the initial one was an assessed evidence of need
because we do need some planned for housing
on a plan led approach for the county.
But a big 43 % increase whilst numbers were dropped
in other areas of the country makes the size, scale and complexity of this plan
all the more difficult and yet it is a legal requirement for us to have a local
plan and if we don't have a local plan then there is absolutely no shaping, no
protection, no consideration of elements of Buckinghamshire and what people think.
Alongside that, and you mentioned later we'll get to infrastructure, just in context, there
is no identified central government money to help Buckinghamshire accommodate the 91 ,000
homes that they are requiring of us to be built.
That burden, and we'll come to this later, will fall onto predominantly developers, as
as well as some national bodies like the NHS
or National Rail or whatever.
That's a real difficult step because the lack
of infrastructure that we currently have means
it's a very big financial jump to get that investment
to make any new communities work well,
but also there are nearly 600 ,000 people
in Buckinghamshire already
And of course this is additional growth based on numbers set in Whitehall.
You mentioned earlier viability and soundness.
That is a key part of the proposals we have to bring through with a suite of evidence
and I know there's thousands and thousands of lines of things to read and hundreds of
papers to go through that the officer team have been working up to test viability, test
deliverability and so on and we'll get stuck in some of those numbers.
There have been five call for sites so that means it's very important people watching don't think
what you know no one here has sat around the table and just put red circles around the county.
The call for sites have meant that landowners have brought forward proposed sites and the series of
work interventions that have gone through and technical assessments so far
have discounted some of those, disregarded some of those,
and left us to in the position that we are now.
We have to adhere to the National Planning Policy Framework,
the MPPF, and use the land hierarchy there,
and that has enabled us, as we're required to do,
to look at all possibilities
and be able to protect our green belt.
This plan does not put any significant housing allocations,
new housing allocations into the green belt.
And the green belt is there for a reason
to prevent the outward sprawl of areas.
And that is a key element that we have done.
I'm confident in the level of technical assessment
that has been done.
So you will see 91 ,000 homes is different
to the 95 and a half thousand homes
we've talked about earlier.
Because the quality and the rigour
of the assessments that have been done
and the history of the last 10 planning applications,
or local plan applications to the inspector
have meant we have removed the buffer.
We are not going to bring forward additional homes
for Buckinghamshire beyond what is already
an eye -wateringly high target.
And then, that said, we have to make sure
that the plans we have can deliver a reasonable plan
that the inspector would find compliant but we're going to be the ones left with this.
So that infrastructure is really important, housing tenure is really important, alignment
of housing numbers to things like town centre regeneration plans is very important because
this can't just turn Buckinghamshire into a series of dormitories. You know this is a place people
love to live in and work in and frankly numbers this big will strain the situation we have but
we have a responsibility to champion very hard for the infrastructure that's needed
to be able to accommodate that.
It has to be sound, it's a legal requirement and this is, the numbers of the plan are dictated
to us and that's why when we, the approach we'll take today and hear about today is we
must get this before an inspector so that at least the decision making around it and
championing of local people and local communities and their infrastructure need comes from here,
not in Whitehall. And it's probably useful now just to hear the relevant cabinet member,
Peter Strachan, I've asked him to maybe just give you a couple of comments on why we need
a local plan more fully.
Cllr Peter Strachan - 0:18:56
Thanks, leader, and that's a pretty comprehensive brief. I think the only point that I would
important there is no option to not have a plan. If we cannot produce a plan which
is acceptable to the inspector the plan will be done for us and in order to do
that the government will employ consultants to do our plan for us and we
will pay for it. So the option of not having a plan does not exist and
difficult though it will be to achieve the numbers these numbers are not of our
making, but we must have a plan which is deliverable because the other alternative would provide
such a disservice to our residents, we'd have absolutely no control over what would
happen next.
So, I think in addition to all the leaders' comments, comprehensive comments, I think
that's just the single point I'd wish to leave in your minds, if I may.
Thank you.
Handing over to you, Steve.
Thank you.
Mr Steve Bambrick - 0:20:01
So thank you, Chair, and I've got a presentation that I will run through, if we could perhaps
just go on to the first slide. That just gives you some contents about what I intend to cover,
so some context around the local plan, hopefully just to, A, remind some members but also for
people who might be listening in, just to kind of give them some of the background.
Then I'll talk a little bit about where we've got to in relation to the Regulation 19 strategy
on some key areas.
I'll talk about infrastructure and I'll also talk about some detailed development management
policies before moving on.
Just a word on timetable, if I may.
So as you've heard already and you'll be aware that this is ultimately a Council decision
to submit the plan to the draught to the to the Inspectorate. We'll be asking the Council
to take that decision in November, its meeting in November and we'll ensure that we fulfil
all the legal requirements to submit the plan by the end of the year. As again you've heard
the Cabinet will be considering the draught plan on the 22nd of July and that decision
will go out to consultation on the Regulation 19 and subject to that decision we intend
to start that consultation on the 23rd of July. After that consultation the Cabinet
will reconsider the consultation responses at a meeting in the autumn and will also have
the opportunity to suggest to the Planning Inspector any further modifications that it
intends to make to the plan. We will also share with this committee its regular meetings,
updates as to how we're progressing and the committee will have an opportunity to make
any further comments it wishes to. All of the points raised by this committee therefore
will be put to the council at its meeting in November before a decision is then made
to submit the plan, so just to be very clear in terms of the timetable that we're following.
If we can move into the first slide, please. So some context here in terms of the kind
of legal duty for preparing a local plan, so the Planning and Compulsory Purchase Act
effectively establishes that duty for the Council to maintain an up -to -date local plan.
We are required as well to produce what's known as a local development scheme and members
will be aware that we earlier in the year we agreed with Cabinet an amendment to that
local development scheme to establish effectively the timetable that we are working on now.
So the timetable I've just outlined there is set out in the local development scheme.
That is a kind of legal document that sits behind the local plan.
It's effectively our kind of project plan that governs the timetable.
Failure, and we've seen this in other places, failure to keep to the LDS can result in government
intervention, so the government obviously are very keen to the local authorities to
follow the timetable that they are following.
We in our LDS have committed to that deadline of December of this year.
Again, some members will be aware that we have had an intervention from the Planning
Minister as well as the LDS that is also defining our timetable as starting on the consultation
on the 23rd of July and submission by December of this year.
And again, as you've already heard, having a local plan is the best defence against speculative
development.
The absence of a local plan means you're not able to demonstrate a five -year supply of
housing and employment land and in those circumstances it becomes very difficult because the weighted
balance in decision -making weighs against refusing speculative development.
So a local plan is the best defence against that.
If we can move on please.
I've mentioned intervention just to give again a bit further context here about where we
are in terms of intervention. So we know that there are nine councils across the
country and three of which are in neighbouring counties that have had
their ability to deal with major applications taken away from them so
where they've not been dealing with applications either within set timetables
or where they have got significant five -year housing land supply issues the
have stepped in and taken away their powers to be able to determine those. We also have
seen more recently more interventions on local plans. So I mentioned obviously the intervention
here on the local plan that we're operating with a direction but there are others as well
on that slide that demonstrate I think that the government has very recently both indicated
and with its actions stepped in in a number of different places to intervene on planning
matters.
So the tests of soundness are a really important part of preparing a local plan. These are
set out in the MPPF and these effectively are the tests that when we eventually submit
the plan to a planning inspector that the inspector will be examining the plan against.
So the fact that we are positively preparing a plan, so we are looking at meeting the needs,
the objectively assessed needs, again you've heard something about those earlier and I'll
talk a little bit more when I'm getting to the strategy, and also we're setting out what
the infrastructure requirements might be of those developments.
Whatever our strategy is that we've justified that strategy, again based on the evidence
that's available, so the many, many pages of evidence that support the Local Plan are
really important part of being able to justify the approach we take.
The plan needs to be effective and deliverable and that's a really important part in the
sense that actually it's no good having a plan and containing sites that ultimately
are not deliverable and that will mean, you've heard from the leader earlier, that part of
the process of sieving some of the sites through this process has meant contacting landowners
for example, making sure that sites that have been submitted are still available and are
deliverable, making sure that the technical assessments that support those sites mean
the sites can be deliverable. Again, the Inspector will want to test those points to make sure
that what's contained within the plan can be delivered.
And the fourth of those tests of soundness is that it's consistent with national policy.
So have we followed the rules that are set out nationally? And again, I'll talk a little
bit more about that as well. So next slide please.
So turning to the Regulation 18 consultation, so we've had over 10 ,000 representations
through the Regulation 18 which was conducted in February and March of this year. All of
those have been considered and are now published as part of our consultation statement that
again supports the local plan and anybody that made a submission as part of the Regulation
18 will be able to see the response that, considering those responses unfortunately
doesn't always mean agreeing with those responses and again we've had to make some very difficult
choices through this process when looking at those tests of soundness to make sure that
what we've got in the plan remains deliverable whilst also responding to some of those representations.
We have, however, made some changes and again, for example, there are some sites that were
contained in the Regulation 18 that are no longer part of the Regulation 19 plan. There
are changes to some of the more detailed policies that I'll come on to as well that we've made
as a consequence both of technical assessments but also of responses that we've had at Regulation
And those are important and we've been comparing those responses against those technical assessments
to make sure again that what is contained in the Regulation 19 plan can meet those tests
of soundness.
Next slide please.
Now you've heard already today about the NPPF and around following national guidance and
national advice. One of the key areas for that is making sure that when we are allocating
sites for whatever purpose in the plan, but obviously one of the key areas is housing
and I'll talk about our housing strategy in a moment. We need to follow the advice
in the MPPF, we need to follow the hierarchy of allocating those sites and our priority
and the national priority is to ensure that we maximise previously developed
sites, brownfield sites first. That's a stated priority of this council, it's a
kind of national priority and it's one that the MPPF asks us to consider. Only
once we've exhausted that and we've had, as you've heard, five
call for sites, two of those have been specifically around brownfield sites,
where we're not able to meet our needs purely on brownfield sites and we're
not, you then consider opportunities on greenfield sites and then beyond that you move into grey
belt and green belt locations. Now before reaching grey belt and green belt you're
also asked to look at collaboration with neighbouring authorities. This used to be called the duty
to cooperate, it was a legal test which has recently been removed as a legal test but
Nevertheless, there is still a requirement for us to collaborate with neighbouring authorities
and we have done that and again there is evidence in the pack to show the collaboration that
we've done.
Unfortunately, through that process we've not been able to identify any of our neighbouring
authorities who are able to accommodate any of the needs for Buckinghamshire.
So we've not been able to do that but nevertheless the point that we've reached in our process
process is that we have been able to meet all of our housing and employment requirements
for the plan without the necessity to look at either grey or green belt allocations and
again I'll talk a little bit more about those.
So these plans are included to give you a comparison of where we have got to and where
we started from effectively in terms of the call for sites.
So we mentioned the call for sites, five call for sites.
The plan on the left is effectively the starting point
for the consideration of potential sites
to go into the local plan.
So you can see the extent to which the sites
that were submitted through the process
and those sites have all been subject
to various degrees of assessment
and engagement with landowners etc to assess their suitability and
deliverability. Those are all the sites therefore that were subject to
assessment. The plan on the right is in effect the kind of agglomeration of the
Regulation 19 plan. Now it's important to say that that includes new allocations,
so allocations for new developments, as well as sites that are being identified
in the plan as existing sites for protection. So I'll talk a little bit when I, for example,
when I get to the employment section of the plan, we have policies in the plan that seek
to protect important employment sites and you'll see those reflected on the plan there.
But that just gives you a sense, I think, of where we started from and also where we've
now reached in terms of our Regulation 19 plan.
Next slide please.
So turning first to our housing strategy.
So first thing to say in terms of housing
is the point again that the leader has alluded to earlier
around the overall level of need.
So Regulation 18 consultation,
we were at that stage talking about an overall requirement
of just over 95 ,000 homes.
That was made up of the level of need,
the requirement for Buckinghamshire,
plus a 5 % buffer.
Now, the point that we have reached,
given the level of technical assessment that we have now done
and the confidence that we believe we have
in the sites that we are putting forward
in the Regulation 19,
And also given how other authorities have dealt with this across the country, we no
longer feel it's necessary to plan for a buffer.
We are planning for the requirement.
That's what's expected of us.
That's what the MPPF expects us to do and that's where therefore the numbers that are
contained with this plan.
So we have a requirement therefore of 91 ,230 and we are proposing sites and approaches
in this plan that gets us to 91 ,265 new homes over the plan period.
We have a stepped trajectory of delivering those homes so for the first effectively four
years of the plan, the build rate in effect would be reasonably consistent with where
we are at the moment. Now that is largely a reflection of the fact that in those first
years we will be building sites that in effect are already in the pipeline now, existing
commitments. But there will need to be, in order to hit the target, there will need to
be a step change beyond that which will effectively be more than doubling the overall build rate
and that will therefore mean that we'll have more and more of the new sites coming forward as well.
Our strategy, as I've mentioned earlier, reflects the MPPF, reflects the national position,
but also reflects the stated position of this council.
So it's a brownfield first strategy, it's a strategy that seeks to protect the Greenbelt.
And as a consequence of that we have 15 % of the overall growth identified on Brownfield
sites, another 15 % on sites that we are terming NESS sites, so new or expanded settlement
sites, and those were also subject to consultation at Regulation 18.
and then the remaining sites are spread across the top tier settlement, so the larger towns
and villages, so within the boundaries of those villages, or in some cases outside of
the Greenbelt on the edges of those towns and villages, and no allocations, no new allocations
in the Greenbelt.
The one exception to the Greenbelt point is there is an allocation at RAF Holton
which is a previously developed site which is already allocated in one of the
legacy area the Aylesbury Vale local plan so this plan is continuing that
allocation on that site but there are no new allocations as part of this
regulation 19 plan. Next slide please. And so as a consequence of that strategy
that what this slide is is showing you is how that supply is then distributed.
So as a starting point you know we take the population of the county and what
you can see from that in terms of the the split between the kind of north and
south of the county, given where the green belt lies across the county.
Just over 37 % of the population currently resides in North Buckinghamshire and just
over 62 % in South Buckinghamshire.
Now again, in terms of our overall supply, given our strategy that we're following,
then there is the majority of the provision is proposed in the north of the county, but
there is still a significant amount of provision in the south as well as kind of other commitments
as well.
And that's the same for both housing and employment, so we've followed a very similar strategy
for both housing and employment and recognising particularly in relation to employment a lot
of these sites are also existing commitments that are contained either in
existing plans that have been carried forward or our sites that have already
got planning permission so that's how that distribution is made up across the
Regulation 19. Next slide please. So I mentioned the NESC sites new and
expanded settlement sites so the this slide shows you where they are and the
numbers that are attributed to each of those.
So I don't propose to kind of read through each of them,
but just to pull out a couple of sites in particular.
So Cheddington and Stoke Mandeville, for example,
were both sites that were consulted on
at Regulation 18 stage.
They were contained within the documents
and were consulted on.
they were not at that stage included in our overall numbers, so we at that stage were
assuming that we would not need to allocate sites in those locations.
As a consequence of the Regulation 18 process, both in terms of responses we received but
also the technical assessments that we've done on all of those sites, what you can see
is that numbers have changed on pretty much all of those sites.
Some of them have gone up, some of them have gone down.
What that has meant is that we've had to call upon some of the sites that we did consult
on at Regulation 18 to bring them into the Regulation 19 plan.
So Cheddington and Stoke Mandible, for example, are good examples of those that were not included
at Regulation 18 but are included now at Regulation 19.
The other point to make I think that's important to make is the numbers there that are on the
right hand column of that table are the numbers for those sites that are in the plan.
So we are assessing the numbers that will come forward in this plan period which is
to 2045.
For some of those sites the development area is bigger than just those numbers which means
that there will be a bigger development taking place in those locations over and above what's
contained on this table. Obviously we're not able to account for that in this plan, but
we would be accounting for those extra developments that would be happening in those as commitments
in the next plan. But for this purpose we're accounting for what happens in the plan period.
and you can see from this table that from all of those sites we're looking at
26 ,700 coming forward on those sites in this plan period.
Next slide please.
Turning to brownfield sites, and again this is a there's a significant
contribution to our overall requirement being made from brownfield sites, 15 % of
the overall supply and that is from within town centres and also centres that are well
connected with train stations and you'll see that there's a 13 ,500 contribution which
is a slight variation, a slight downward variation from where we, the point we assumed at Regulation
18 but the reason for the change is because again we've done the further technical work,
We've done a lot of work on each of the town centre sites and allocations to look and to
model against things like national space standards, against national design codes, against highway
modelling to make sure that we are capable of delivering those sites in those locations.
There are assumptions that are being made around density on each of those sites.
we have not applied a blanket assumption on all of them.
Because of the work we've done,
we've been able to look at each of the individual sites
and assume a level of density
that's appropriate for each of those sites.
In some cases, up to 100 dwellings per hectare.
So these will be high -density developments
that are taking place in town centres.
There's a parallel policy point,
which again I'll come on to a little bit later
in the presentation, which is that we're also
bringing forward the kind of new parking standards
for Buckinghamshire as part of the local plan.
And within that, there will be specific policies
around town centre parking, which will correlate
with our proposals here, which will mean
accepting as part of these new developments
less parking provision that we might
historically have accepted, accepting therefore
that these are better connected places but in order to hit those kind of high
identities that's one of the choices that we're making. Also just to say
there's a significant number of these sites that are owned by the council that
that will also be contributing to that overall number. Next slide please.
Turning to employment provision then, so again similar to how we plan for the
housing numbers. We start from the perspective of the employment requirement, the employment
need and in this case for the plan period we have a need of 219 hectares. You can see
from the table on the slide how that need is made up in terms of the different types
of employment uses. The point that we've reached with the plan is that we are proposing a provision
of 270 hectares across the county and you'll see that part of that is because we are obviously
looking to maximise our employment provision in our key employment locations and it also
gives us some further flexibility but also we've got a number of existing commitments
so in terms of making new provision we are making some new provision but we've got a
number of existing commitments. We are proposing, as I mentioned earlier, to protect key employment
sites across the county, which include our four strategic employment sites. So we have
three enterprise zones in the county, as well as a key employment site, strategic employment
site at Pinewood in the south of the county, and those are specifically protected for their
uses going forward. We also have the policies within the plan that align with the recently
approved growth plan for the county as well. And if we move to the next slide, what you'll
see is in terms of our overall supply that we have allocated new growth on our employment
sites, specifically around our economic growth clusters, so there's a very significant amount
of growth, for example at Westcott Venture Park in the north of the county. That's
one of our enterprise zones, that's one of our key areas of employment growth. It's
one that specifically supports our growth plan and so that's one of the reasons why
that is contained within the plan. You can also see from this table however, as I've
said before, that we've got a very considerable number of existing commitments, 124 hectares
of existing commitments that make up the overall provision.
That gets us to the 270, which is obviously in excess of the requirement for 219.
Next slide please.
Specifically again on employment, we do have an approach for data centres and we know that
This county is particularly, there is a particular interest
in this county for the demand for data centres.
We know that that's been driven by more cloud computing
and data intensive industries.
We also know that the area, particularly around Slough
and the Thames Valley cluster,
is of particular interest in Buckinghamshire.
When we consorted on the Regulation 18 plan we proposed the potential for allocating some
sites for data centres, but only a limited number.
We've actually, again through the Regulation 18 process, had a very considerable number
of potential sites submitted through the process.
we do not have the evidence to say that there's any specific need in
Buckinghamshire, albeit we recognise that there is a national requirement for data
centres, but the specific need in Buckinghamshire we do not have the
evidence for and therefore we do not have the evidence to, if you like, choose
between all of the different proposals that have come forward and as a
allocate all of the sites, and again, go back to the point that we don't think there is
evidence that there's a need for all of the sites, or allocate none of the sites and instead
rely on a criteria -based policy that would mean that we would fully assess those sites
as they come forward, if and when they come forward through the planning process.
It's the latter approach that we've adopted in this plan, to have a criteria -based policy
and to set out the circumstances where we would consider those.
So recognising that these uses are needed and are likely to come forward, but also setting
out the circumstances where we would consider them positively.
So that's the approach that's now in the plan, so no allocations for data centres.
Next slide please. Turning then to gypsy and traveller strategy. So similar to
housing and employment we start from the perspective of what does our assessment
tell us is required or that we're required to plan for over the plan
period and our requirements specifically for the first 10 years of the plan is for 516
pitches for the drip sea and traveller community and 20 plots for travelling show people.
And again we've been through our hierarchy of assessment, we've been through call for
sites as part of our overall and we've been through our technical assessments as part
of the Regulation 18 process.
The point that we've reached in the Regulation 18 plan
is that we are able to allocate 285 pitches and 14 plots.
Now, this includes sites, new sites,
outside of the Greenbelt,
and also additional pitches on existing sites
within the Greenbelt as well.
So there will be some existing sites that exist within the Greenbelt locations where
we're looking at in effect including additional pitches on those sites.
In addition to which, in addition to those allocations, we are also looking to bring
forward a kind of windfall allowance.
So again, looking at our past performance on windfall of gypsy and traveller sites in
particular, we believe it is reasonable to assume a windfall of 104 pitches.
Now of course that still doesn't get us to the 516, so we recognise that we're below
the level of requirement, but we also believe, given the steps we've taken and the assessments
that we've done, that that approach is both consistent with the MPPF and also has the
ability to be found sound.
So we recognise that's an area that we've not been able to meet the need, but we do
believe that's a sound approach and that's therefore the approach that's contained within
the Regulation 19 plan.
Next slide please.
And so just to wrap up on those specific points and again kind of returning back to the kind
of soundness of the plan.
So for all of those particular areas we have conducted very extensive calls for sites.
We've conducted very extensive evidence gathering, technical evidence gathering, contacting of
landowners contacting promoters of sites and ensuring that sites that are contained within
the plan can be delivered and will be delivered in the plan period.
And as a consequence of following the hierarchy of allocations, so Brownfield first, we have
been able to meet the needs and present what we believe to be a sound plan without the
need to allocate any new sites either in grey belt or green belt for either housing or employment.
There is, as I've just mentioned, some limited allocations on existing sites within the green
belt for gypsy and travellers and I've talked about that in the previous slide. But on that
basis we believe the approach and the strategy of the plan meets the tests of soundness.
Next slide please.
So in relation to infrastructure, and again,
members will have seen, and it's obviously available
as part of the suite of documents that support
the local plan, that we are required to produce
an infrastructure delivery plan that supports
the local plan.
Now that's been a process that we've been following
in parallel with preparing the local plan.
and obviously once we reached regulation 18
and once we published sites, draught sites for the plan,
we were able to engage fully with all of the infrastructure
providers who have responsibility in the county
to be able to get their views about what might be needed
in order to support the developments that are contained
within the plan.
So there's a summary on this slide
that sets out what those requirements are.
And again, important to stress, I think,
that where those requirements are contained
within the infrastructure plan,
those are, if you like, the requirements
that are set out to us by the infrastructure providers.
So where we're saying we're looking to propose
X number of homes in Y location,
the infrastructure providers are saying to us,
this is what we need, this is what we need
as part of your plan to ensure we can bring forward sustainable developments.
That's what the infrastructure plan seeks to do.
What you can see therefore is the combination of those requirements takes us to a total
bill of at least £6 billion worth of infrastructure costs that would be required to support the
bringing forward of the local plan.
We can move to the next slide please.
And just in relation to those costs again what we've been able to do is look at in very
broad terms how those costs might be distributed so the largest proportion of those costs will
be met and will be expected to be met by developments that come forward in the plan so that will
principally be through Section 106 agreements where they'll be making
contributions to the infrastructure that's needed. It may be through direct
provision so the developers themselves as they're developing their sites and
that typically that would be things like roads for example they will actually
deliver the infrastructure themselves as part of their development and they will
pay a contribution to a 106 agreement and it would be delivered by others.
There are still, there's still a funding gap we believe in terms of what the development
or the developers will not be responsible for and in those cases there'll be responsibility
will rest with utility companies or other public bodies or it may be that we are requiring
or asking government as well to look at how they might help fund some of that gap.
Principally, it's making sure that those other bodies know that they have a responsibility as well
and they will need to include in their investment strategies and plans
their contribution to bringing forward the infrastructure as and when it might be needed.
So, again, just important to say as well that SIL, Community Infrastructure Levy, is completely
separate to this conversation.
So what I've described is a mechanism where we will be securing infrastructure as part
of the development.
For the south of the county at the moment, and we're bringing forward proposals for the
north of the county to introduce SIL.
So for across the whole county eventually we will have SIL contributions
which developers will still be required to make on top of the contributions that
are contained within within this infrastructure plan and those
contributions a proportion of that is passed directly to Town and Parish
Councils and there's a proportion as well that's paid to this council as well
for infrastructure as well. So those two things are separate but the
infrastructure delivery plan is seeking to look at the infrastructure that's required
as part of the developments that are coming forward.
Next slide please.
So final suite of slides and then I'll pause Chairman just to talk a little bit about the
more detailed development management policies that are contained within the plan.
And so we again conducted a detailed consultation as part of the Regulation 18 stage on a whole
suite of development management policies.
We had a lot of engagement on those and a number of them have been amended as a consequence
of that consultation, including with a number of statutory bodies.
We have also amended some of those on the back of further evidence that's been supported
and I'll talk a little bit for example around affordable housing in a moment as an example
of one of those areas and also at the end of last year the government also consulted
on further changes to the MPPF and again we've been looking at making sure our policies are
reflective of the MPPF and national position.
In total, there are 64 development management policies,
so again, as I say, a suite of development
management policies.
They will be used in the determination
of planning applications as they come forward
through the planning process.
So there are important policies that will be used
in kind of everyday assessment of planning applications.
Next slide, please.
So affordable housing in particular and viability I think is important to just focus in on.
So perhaps deal with viability first.
So again one of the important pieces of evidence that sits alongside the local plan is a viability
testing of the local plan.
Now that includes
That all of the local plan policies and the approach of the local plan
We need to attest the viability of the plan and we also
Particularly for the nest sites need to test the viability of those sites
So, you know where we've got very specific infrastructure requirements on those nest sites
We test the viability and in some cases therefore
We have to accept that some of the some of the requirements on some of those nest sites will differ
because the viability on some of those sites will differ given the requirements
on them. But affordable housing is one of those key areas where viability is
tested at the local plan stage. When we consulted on the Regulation 18 plan we
consulted on a policy for affordable housing that looked to provide an
overall provision of affordable housing of 40 % across the whole of the county.
As part of the viability work that's been done, what we've now established is that
we're not able to sustain the 40 % provision across the whole of the county.
The viability in the north and central planning areas, so the old Aylesbury Vale area, would
not support a 40 % target.
So the approach that's now contained within the plan is for a 40 % target to remain in
the south, west and east areas, so effectively the south of the county, with some specific
provision around some brownfield sites in the west area of up to 40 % and then a 25 %
target in the north.
Now again that reflects a number of different factors including land values, including infrastructure
costs but those are all part of the assessment. It is important to say two things I think.
One which is on the slide which is our performance in those areas over the past 10 years is reflective
again of the infrastructure requirements that have come forward and the fact that we don't
have an up to date local plan means that our performance particularly in the south of the
has been nowhere near the overall level of policy requirements. So 15 % has been achieved
in the south. We've been much closer to the target of 25 % in the north historically.
The other thing to say is there is a, again another piece of evidence that sits behind
all of this, is our local housing needs assessment which sets out and breaks down the types of
tenure of affordable housing and particularly talks about the biggest need in this area
being for social rented which is the biggest requirement and we would expect as part of
any provision that the social rented element of affordable housing will be maximised as
far as possible to meet that overall level of need.
Next slide please.
I've mentioned parking standards earlier but just again to cover here to say that as
part of the plan that will be presented to Cabinet we will be presenting the new parking
standards.
There was a consultation again earlier this year on those and received feedback on those
and that will again will all be reported to Cabinet.
We're proposing to bring that forward effectively as an appendix to the plan but again just
Just to be clear that this particularly points to and talks to the overall strategy for our
kind of brownfield first, focusing on town centres. These two things work hand in glove.
So maximising our town centres, maximising density in our town centres and recognising
there is an impact therefore on how we can provide new parking on those developments
in town centres are part and parcel of the same strategy and so the parking standards
will be part of the new local plan and as a consequence of them being an appendix they
will, we will attach greater weight to them in the decision making process as part of
that. Next slide please.
Similarly we consulted on a new design code for the county at the same time so we've been
through that consultation process.
The design code is a really important part
of how we will bring forward development.
So you've heard from the leader,
you've heard I'm sure many times from members of the public
and we've heard it through the consultation.
It's a really challenging target to meet the overall growth
that's required in Buckinghamshire.
We have a duty to do it,
we have a duty to bring forward the local plan
and we will do so to the best of our ability.
But in doing so, we will seek as far as possible
to get the highest quality development across the county.
That doesn't just mean the bricks and mortar
of the buildings themselves,
it means the spaces between those buildings as well.
And that's what the design code is designed to do.
So that's where the design code will be important.
And also, separate to the design code, there are policies within the plan when it comes
to building standards that where we've needed to make choices, the choices we've taken have
been to make sure that we align with national standards, not to kind of place additional
burdens on development because we want to focus on making sure we can bring forward
and prioritise other key important infrastructure as part of the overall plan provision.
So that's the approach the plan takes to both building standards and to new design.
Next slide please.
So these are just my final couple of slides, Chair.
So the consultation that I've mentioned before starts on the 23rd of July.
The purpose of that will be to test whether the plan is sound, effectively, in the soundness
test and we will be encouraging people, we absolutely want people to give us their views
on the plan, but I'll go back to what I said earlier, the test for the inspector is, is
the plan sound?
So for those people that are engaging with the plan, it would be really, really important
and we will give you as much advice as we can to be able to try and test the plan against
those soundness tests. That's the test for the inspector and it will be something that
the inspector will be particularly interested in. It's important we remain on track because
as I said before, if our timetable slips, if we slip from our local development scheme,
we face the potential for intervention and we don't want to do that. As a consequence,
our consultation runs for effectively the statutory period, 23 July to 6 September,
six weeks consultation, that enables us to stay on track and meet the submission date
for December. Next slide please. In recognition, and we do recognise it's a difficult period
to be running a significant consultation such as this, again without overstressing the point,
we have no choice, we must start the consultation on the 23rd of July, we're directed to do
so. We are committed to make sure that as many people are aware and can engage with
the process. We've got a number of different channels of communication, particularly in
relation to website, social media, media engagement and also direct communication and newsletters.
So we've got a series of communications channels.
We're delivering specific briefings both to Council members, MPs, Town and Parish Councils,
Council staff trying to raise awareness.
We'll have some digital exhibition boards, we'll have FAQs available on the website.
Our objective is to try and make as many people aware of this as possible and of course I'm
sure members as well will want to do the same.
I think my final slide is just a repeat of your recommendations, Chair.
Thank you.
Thank you very much.
Very helpful.
Cllr Simon Rouse - 1:07:09
So we're going to move firstly to explore the soundness tests and the overall strategy.
Questions, members?
Councillor Waters.
Thank you.
Cllr Jonathan Waters - 1:07:20
The first sort of question that I've got is Regulation 19.
Obviously we're going to consultation, but there will be no changes to this document
as far as I'm aware, from those consultees, though all the information will go to the
inspector, you may be able to put in a minor change as a written submission from the council.
But when I talked on my local ward to the local plan officer, I asked the question,
have we missed a stage? And that officer confirmed, yes, we have missed a stage, which is we have
not been to the residents with all the sites where they could actually comment on the sites.
So for instance the questions come up from the parish council today is exactly that.
There are sites here that were not on their list before. They have not had, and neither
has anyone in Bucknish, has seen all of these sites, been able to comment, put forward to
yourselves whatever points they want to make in terms of the sites and the soundness. It's
same point that was raised by and identified by the Minister that there are concerns that
we actually hadn't gone to actually the residents with all those sites to actually get them
to comment. And I think what the issue could be is soundness is have we covered all the
processes and I don't think most of the residents of Buckinghamshire are aware that actually
you will not be able to make any major changes even if there is something very significant
that comes up, your only option will be to actually pull this plan which is not what
we want. So I'm concerned that you're going to have lots of comments and you might have
issues coming forward that we're not going to be able to deal with. Have we actually
missed that point and what decision process was taken not to actually go forward with
all the areas as we've got in this document so that people could actually make comments
where changes could then be made by yourselves and the cabinet member.
Mr Steve Bambrick - 1:09:35
Thank you. So direct answer, no we haven't missed the stage. So I think we just need
to be very, very clear about that. We conducted the Regulation 18 consultation on all the
I'm certainly not aware of any kind of new sites that have kind of been introduced
certainly since February, but nevertheless the Regulation 18 is not a prescriptive stage,
it's a much broader stage.
Cllr Jonathan Waters - 1:10:11
So we're very clear that the 18 stage was mainly focused on those people who put sites
forward to say are you still totally committed to putting those sites forward. I think that
was the key push for that. The public and their views were a slightly different point
of voice so let's not drift off on that. We haven't actually done something which is clear
which is this is the plan, this is where we're going, what do you think?
Let the officers answer and I'll come back to you.
Mr Steve Bambrick - 1:10:37
The Regulation 18 stage was a publication of all of the sites for people to engage with
and we had a lot of responses on those sites.
So again, to be clear, my view is we haven't missed the stage.
So I think we just need to be very clear about that.
I think on your point about next stages beyond Regulation 19,
so yes, you're right.
We will consult on the Regulation 19 plan.
We're not then in a place where the council can change the plan.
The Regulation 19 plan is the council's plan.
We will however, and I described the timetable that we're following, we will however have
the ability, should we think it's necessary, to propose further modifications to the plan,
but those are the council proposing modifications to the inspector.
It becomes the inspectors decision as to whether or not to change the Regulation 19 plan.
So the council will have an engagement in that but it's not the council's decision.
So before I go back to council, can I just clarify then.
Cllr Simon Rouse - 1:11:52
So if in the Regulation 19 phase respondents raise issues about a site or sites that are
in the plan that the council then considers actually those are justifiable reasons for
us to revisit this site. The council would then propose, consider they want to make that
change, propose that modification to the inspector to the plan. So there's therefore still a
mechanism by which issues around sites could be raised and the council can consider. Is
that the right interpretation? Okay. Council Waters, do you want to come back or are you
Cllr Jonathan Waters - 1:12:34
I think the clarification is I think if they are major changes that came forward rather
than something minor, I'm not sure that that is going to make the plan very sound.
So if you went forward or we went forward as a council with something major, let's say
a large site coming out, because we've not got significant extra numbers here, that could
cause problems with the plan.
and either you have to bring in new numbers from elsewhere which haven't been consulted on.
That's the sort of question, this position we've got ourselves into.
Mr Steve Bambrick - 1:13:06
Well, and again, to be clear, that's the position every local plan is in,
that if they get to Regulation 19 and then subsequently there's a major change of whatever nature
that they feel they need to consider, that's an issue for every local plan.
And the way to mitigate that is to make sure you've got all the necessary evidence available
and you make the same decision at Regulation 19 states.
And what we're saying is that's exactly what we've done.
So we're confident in the evidence that we've produced and supports the local plan.
And I completely recognise that different people will say, well, we wouldn't have done
it that way or we think your strategy is not correct.
I mean that's the nature of the plan but that's different to you've got this wrong
and your evidence is wrong.
We don't believe that we're in that position at all.
We wouldn't be recommending to cabinet a plan that we believe to be sound if we didn't
believe it was sound.
Just one final point.
Cllr Jonathan Waters - 1:14:13
SMA 001 lay house was not on the list of sites on the Reg 18.
That's one example.
So I don't know of others
Yeah, I mean that most we picked up separately I think and council problem
Cllr Simon Rouse - 1:14:27
Cllr Steven Broadbent - 1:14:30
Yeah, if I could just interject and ask the officer to comment on what seemed like a bit of a flower comment
But you know if a site came out suddenly a site would come forward that not being consulted on
The reg 18 included more sites than is currently in reg 19
So could you just talk about that because I do not want people watching thinking
there could certainly be a new site allocation that would come out of the blue.
Thank you.
Mr Steve Bambrick - 1:14:56
Yes, so as we've said, I think as part of the presentation, we've been through five
different call for sites and as part of the Reg 18, again as we said in the presentation,
we consorted on more sites than were then included in the numbers.
and a number of those sites have not been needed
and therefore are not taken forward at the Reg 19.
Having been through the five call for sites,
it's difficult to see how a brand new site
that we are not now aware of.
And in my experience, an inspector would not
contemplate a site that had not followed.
On the basis that we've had five call for sites,
there's been plenty of opportunity for people to say,
here's my site, please consider it.
Cllr Simon Rouse - 1:15:52
Cllr Robin Stuchbury - 1:16:05
I think it's important that we have the discussions and secondly thank the officers for their
assessment of the needs assessment I think we need to say that that said I I
do know the comments of my colleague Jonathan waters and I do feel that maybe
it was a mistake in 2023 we didn't seek to have more involvement of more members
but we are where we are today so we have to deal with what we have got presently
my concern is that giant not meaning to be parochial but looking at it in a
how you can assess this to be sustained it to be substantially and sound if you
look at the infrastructure map B and I'm referring to Buckingham because a
perfect example I realise there's other places in Buckinghamshire with the same
problem you have managed to put a concept road through an estate which
went through planning only on Monday which means that that road which you've
got in which is a big part of delivering those future growth let's be honest that
growth isn't coming today it will come years so that will need to be looked at
because you should have known that you had a planning application in you should
have known that that application was going through and I noted I observed it
being agreed at the first stage on Monday so that brings the whole that
road into question it also didn't add in another concept Road into the into the
mix which was from the a41 to the a4 1 2 so that that whole basis of the road
you put in there worries me about how we get it to the next stage that said the
question which is in the ether if those if that's one example across
Buckinghamshire and I am the great thing about your local area you know your
local area and I listen to Councillor Colin Moore earlier today in
conversation that there are other issues so that said that questions one the
second question would be when four sites the way that win four sites are coming
through and how we manage those windfall sites because between now the work
you've done now and the final assessments of the plan you state in
it that there will be windfall sites now those are going to bring forward
infrastructure issues education issues which may be in structure and other
issues how we manage that because the concept of the site allocations are
where they are and and how we manage that lastly I didn't know you referred
to any policies in a local neighbourhood plan in your when addressing this plan
and those policies were sound and faint found sound in my own local area and
this would be similar in other areas was found sound by the council but those
policies didn't make their way into the plan and they were on many of the
aspects that you discussed like design codes and such that so I worry that we
not saying we've missed the stage but I need to understand why that was so and
why you didn't recognise a local plan because we have pushed let's be clear
as a local if I asking people to do local neighbourhood plans because we know
the value of them we know that they produce information so that not being a
Conformity brings me a concern. I think you should be able to answer those questions and they are for Pacific questions
And I apologise if I went insulin one after the other but they needed to be said I look forward to your response
So very quickly just in terms of the first point around
Mr Steve Bambrick - 1:20:08
Concept right. So I think it's important to say I think
As a general point
So for each of the nest sites what's contained within the plan are kind of illustrative plans for each of those I?
stressed the word
illustrative these are not
Plans that we are defining the developments for those locations
They are to some extent a mechanism for us to be able to demonstrate to an inspector that what we're assuming
Will come forward on the sites can be accommodated now
I recognise of course, and Councillor Stutchbury's mentioned some particular circumstances in
relation to new permissions etc.
Those will have to be accommodated as part of any development that comes forward.
But again it doesn't mean that the plan is wrong, it just means that the plan has been
done at a time to look at the illustration of how a development can come forward.
So those are not a repeat, the kind of detailed plans that we expect will be delivered on
each of those sites.
They are purely illustrative.
In terms of managing windfall sites between now and when the plan is adopted, I think
is probably the question.
So I think we recognise, and again this is an issue that will apply to any location where
bringing forward a new plan. Until the plan reaches the later stages of preparation, it
does not attract significant weight in the decision making. So once we get beyond, you
know, into Regulation 19 consultation, we can attach some limited weight to some of
the policies, but it's not significant. As we get closer to adoption, that weight becomes
more significant, we will therefore need to deal with any windfall or speculative applications
that come forward in that intervening period on a case -by -case basis as we would now effectively.
But it is also another reminder of how important it is to stick to the timetable of bringing
the local plan forward because as soon as we get that plan with more weight we can deliver
it and we can resist developments that are not in accordance with the plan.
On the neighbourhood plan piece, again it's important to recognise the hierarchy of plans
here.
So I mentioned earlier that the preparation of this plan needs to be in accordance with
the national planning policy framework.
We have to do that.
and similarly neighbourhood plans will need to accord with the local plan.
Now at the moment that local plan is the Vale of Aylesbury local plan for Buckingham, but
of course this council needs to make its strategic choices about where development should go
and how it should go and neighbourhood plans, if they are not in conformity with that, will
need to then consider updating their neighbourhood plans.
In the same way as if there's a change to national policy, our plan would be out of
date and we would need to consider changes to our plan.
That's how the hierarchy of plans works.
If the chair would let me have a little bit of pushback.
Cllr Robin Stuchbury - 1:23:33
When I said neighbourhood planning you said in conformity.
This Pacific site, and I believe there's others, by not noting the neighbourhood plan
you managed to put a theoretical road through a proposed area for development which had
which was agreed by the council voted for and passed by referendum so that
that Pacific time joined the reg 18 and the preparing of the site it was jolly
well known that that was an agreed area of development which we were grateful
for because it helped us move towards the five -year land supply so I'm just
concerning that that isn't replicated across Buckinghamshire because we get a
real problem then that things aren't in conformity I recognise what you say
about hierarchy of condition but at the time you were doing the reg 18 and
correct me if I'm wrong the penultimate plan the most modern plan in that area
Buckingham and there we others in other areas worth the Buckingham neighbourhood
plan so it would have been advisable to have prepared it in conformity with that
plan in my personal opinion I'm not a planning expert I'm just a counsellor who
has to answer these things in in the public domain and I just wonder how
we're going to address that if it's a conformity issue that repeats itself
across Buckinghamshire and when you get to South Buckinghamshire there isn't
quite so many neighbourhood plans that's an historical fact but I feel there's
going to be a a challenge there and I just like a little pushback on the
timing of these things, yet I recognise the hierarchy. But at the time you were pre -regating,
the hierarchy was in the power and the weight in planning terms at meetings and everywhere
else was with that plan. Thank you.
We've got the questions. Thank you.
Mr Steve Bambrick - 1:25:27
And again, I'm afraid it's probably a version of the same answer to some extent in that
I mean, so in recognition of the hierarchy, what we have not done in preparing this plan
plan is whilst of course trying to respect and reflect as far as possible the priorities
for local areas and local communities, what we haven't done is being guided by all of
the policies in all of the neighbourhood plans across the county because of course that would
just restrict the choices, the strategic choices that would be available in preparing this
plan.
it's important that this plan is prepared with a strategy in mind that can be delivered
and I recognise therefore that there will be certain circumstances where that creates
a conflict with an existing neighbourhood plan. I think that's the point you're making
but in those circumstances where that conflict is created it will be for the neighbourhood
plan to then be updated to reflect the changed position.
Cllr Simon Rouse - 1:26:30
Just to again clarify, so when you do your town and parish council briefing next week
that relationship of the neighbourhood plans to this plan will be an area you'll cover.
Yes indeed.
Thank you for your response. I think that this is going to be an ongoing conception.
Councillor Long.
Cllr Jackson Ng - 1:26:47
Thank you Chairman. Can I just say on behalf of the residents of Beckonsville, thank you to cabinet members and the officers for putting this together given the compressed timetable.
I completely agree that we should, you know, get this going as soon as possible to prevent
the national government from intervening for the sake of our county and residents.
To that mind, I've got three linked questions, and I'll bring them through really quickly.
Just on the back of what Councillor Strutbury said, really, my question now is really about
the gap between now and adoption in 2028.
So that's my first question.
During that period, the area planning committees must keep determining applications against
this emerging plan, which I understand at Reg 19, before examination and objections
are even resolved, might, or I don't know, carries limited weight.
So especially when the council has no five -year housing supply, so the tilt of balance, I
understand, already runs in favour of development.
That leaves planning committees, officers and residents potentially, or not residents, but officers and committees,
refusing schemes that actually accord with our emerging allocations, which is premature and vulnerable on appeal with cost.
Or, alternatively, which I'm very concerned about, being driven to grant unallocated greenfields and greybelt sites by default.
So, can officers, you know, inform the committee what single, if applicable, written interim
decisions protocol members will be given or officers will be given, which covers our current
land supply position, how much weight to give to the emerging allocations and the grey belt
mapping and at which milestones might these increase in weight?
So, that's the first question.
Then the second question really is really towards the soundness, the legalness of it.
At Reg 18, the council planned for, I think Steve mentioned, a 5 % buffer.
At Reg 19, we now have got only a margin of 35 homes.
Now I understand what Steve mentioned earlier, but with headroom debt thin,
the Momen and Inspector find any single allocation undeliverable.
My fear is that the plan might fall on its own requirement.
How is that being positively prepared by the authority?
And my last question really is consistency with the national policy is judged at adoption
in 2028, not today.
Now, we all know a draught MPPF was published in December 2025.
Now, what is the plan's exposure if in between the national Labour government decide that
we're going to change the MPPF again?
How is that compressed timetable being managed so that the speed itself does not become a
legal compliant risk down the line?
Thank you, Chairman.
Mr Steve Bambrick - 1:29:39
Thank you for the question. So on the first point around weight to be attached to the
plan, so again I'll refer to my answer earlier, but the Regulation 19 stage we will be in
a place of being able to attach limited weight. Now that's a very broad point and what I can't
do and it probably, and it wouldn't be appropriate for me to do, is to kind of try and give you
kind of worked example because ultimately the amount of weight that we attach will be
dependent upon all of the issues that we're considering in relation to a specific application.
So is that application an application that is in one of our NESS sites for example? Is
it something that runs completely contrary to the draught strategy and therefore is there
an argument that we might, a legal argument that we might be able to pursue around prematurity.
So there are all sorts of different options that would be available to us but they would
all be dependent upon the circumstances at the time. So therefore the very general answer
is we would attach limited weight but we would look at each circumstance as and when it presents
itself and we would have to make a judgement and we would of course take legal advice about
what the appropriate response to those individual applications might be at the time and we would
of course talk to members about those judgements as we're faced with them.
I think once we get beyond examination of the plan, because you asked about what are
the milestones, then I would anticipate that we'd be in a place where we'd be attaching
more considerable weight to the plan.
Obviously it's not until we adopt the plan that we attach full weight to the plan, but
I would see the milestones as being Regulation 19, examination, receipt of inspectors'
reports and then adoption.
Along each of those steps I could see us progressively attaching more weight to the plan, but again
I'll go back to what I said earlier which is individual circumstances will apply in
each of those. I think you also ask about the 5 % buffer and the soundness piece, so
I alluded to it in the presentation but one of the bits of information that we've been
looking at as part of our judgements on this is how other authorities have prepared their
plans and so of the last ten authorities that have been through the process, seven of those,
seven out of ten have adopted a plan that has effectively just met their housing requirement,
not planned for a buffer. That's been accepted, that's been approved. The other three did
provide more than the requirement but in those three circumstances that was because under
the duty to cooperate, they were providing numbers for elsewhere, not because they were
providing a buffer. The important point though is the evidence that sits behind the justification
for the sites and again I go back to the point that we are very confident in the evidence
that sits behind those sites. We have not, I think, and again this is an important part,
and you saw it I think on the table on the screen, what we have not done is sought to
over egg the amount of development that could come forward on those sites.
So we've been very realistic, we think.
And what that has meant, we've had to add more sites in.
So the Cheddington and the Stoke Mandeville, for example, have been added in because what
we didn't want to do is over assume that, because I think that would be a risk.
We're over assuming, we think we're going to achieve more than we can.
I think an inspector then would say, hold on a minute, you're assuming too high.
We've not done that.
We've been very, very realistic about what can be delivered and as a consequence we've
had to bring more sites in.
So I think we can have some confidence on that.
I mean it remains a risk, of course it does, but I think our confidence is high.
I think the final thing to say on that as well is that through the process of preparation
we have also been engaged with the planning inspectorate.
So we've had three different advisory visits from the planning inspectorate through that
process to test and to give us advice about the process we've been following and the evidence
that we've been producing. And all of those have been very, very positive sessions. So
we've been following their advice in the preparation. So again, that can give us confidence about
the level of support that we've got. And then I think your final question was, you know,
what protection have we got if the government decides to kind of change the MPPF? Again,
I kind of dread to think if it were to happen.
Again, in part the answer to what I said earlier, once we are in the process with the planning
inspector, we will be in the hands of the planning inspector, we will be submitting
our plan in December.
If there are further changes whilst we are in that process, the inspector may choose
to ask us to look at something, so they may choose to pause the examination and ask the
council to do a bit more work on something.
The Inspector may decide it's not significant enough to introduce a change, but to some
extent we'll be in the hands of the Inspector and we will need to react to that.
But I'm not anticipating there are big changes coming, but who knows.
Thank you, Chairman.
Thank you.
I've got Councillor Collins.
Yes, thank you, Chairman.
Cllr Michael Collins - 1:35:33
Uh, have providers of services such as Thames Valley Police, Foreign Emergency Services,
Healthcare Trust, been involved in the production of this proposed plan?
Um, as their involvement, I believe, is important, in fact, essential and needs to be ongoing.
Um, I work closely on a daily basis with the healthcare service providers and there's a
what the trusts themselves say, that there is an inability to provide the existing services
and the additional burden going forward with the proposed plan is going to make it entirely
difficult, if not impossible, for them to be – to enable us to engage and enforce
the plan.
Yeah, if I could come in on that question.
Richard Ambrose - 1:36:31
Yes, we have been talking to all infrastructure providers and public service bodies, so we've
been talking to utility providers, water providers, health, police, we've been talking to all
of them and having very good conversations with them so they're fully aware of what we
are planning and are building into their plans what they need to do to support our proposals
and the infrastructure that's required around that.
But, yeah, very positive conversations that we've been having.
Cllr Michael Collins - 1:37:06
I'm afraid the Achilles heel is that within these services there's often a difference
between the opinion being given by the controlling authority itself and the actual task force,
the work force themselves.
And there is this dispute.
Now, at the end of the day, that difference could have a major impact on the ability for
to enforce this plan? Yeah I guess all I can repeat though is we are having
Richard Ambrose - 1:37:32
conversations and regular conversations so hopefully we are talking to the right
people and having productive conversations but we feel that they have
been positive and really helpful for us actually in terms of us developing our
Cllr Steven Broadbent - 1:37:49
plans. Yeah just maybe ask you to expand on that Richard or Steve about what the
plan is and what it isn't. You know we're required and Steve will come back to the
soundness bit that we're talking about required to make sure we've done that
that engagement. The council certainly through this local plan is not in a
position to pass judgement of the of the information that comes back given their
relative expertise of all those partners but maybe it's just worth just to
reassure people how that information is then used when any site comes forward
for planning in the future.
So there's the soundness of the plan test,
but then how that's used forward,
I just think it's maybe worth having Steve
or Richard explain that.
Yeah, thank you.
Mr Steve Bambrick - 1:38:38
And perhaps also just to give an example in relation to,
specifically to kind of healthcare provision,
because I think, you know, as a comparison
to where we are at the moment,
compared to where we might be in the future
as a consequence of the work that's now being done.
So I think it's probably fair to say that as part of the preparation of the legacy local
plans that we're still living with now, the input from the infrastructure providers was
quite limited, in some cases it was very limited, and as a consequence of that, what that means
is that when you then deal with individual planning applications as they come through
the system, you don't have the kind of background evidence to support kind of requests for contributions
and requests for infrastructure. That becomes very difficult and what that means is you're
then asking planning committees to make some difficult judgements about prioritising infrastructure
when it's not been properly planned for. The work that's been done as part of the infrastructure
delivery plan is specifically looking at the needs that are arising as a
consequence of the development in the plan. It's not designed to try and
address existing deficiencies that we'd all like to try and
address in relation to any infrastructure because to put the test
for the plan is what infrastructure is needed as a
consequence of this plan and we plan for it. But the positive place that
takes us to, particularly in relation to health, is that yes they have been engaged, yes they
have been able to tell us what their needs are and quantify that in the infrastructure
delivery plan and it means that when we then come to determine these applications in the
plan we can be very clear to the developers upfront this is what the requirement is and
it takes away a lot of that back and forth of well we never knew that was also a requirement
as well. So this puts us in a much, much stronger position than we've ever been. I'm not saying
it's perfect, but a much stronger position than we've ever been.
Coming back to that point, does that mean that when it gets to the planning stage, we've
Cllr Michael Collins - 1:40:47
got an opportunity there to reject an application based on their inability to provide the services
that we're asking them to provide? Well, so for any application at the planning
stage we would expect the application to be determined in accordance with the
Mr Steve Bambrick - 1:41:07
local plan. The local plan is the develop will form the development plan for the
area. If we've got applications that are coming forward that are not in
conformity with the local plan then you know it will be for the decision makers
but there's a very good reason therefore to refuse those applications. Right
Councillor Wilson.
Cllr Stuart Wilson - 1:41:32
Thank you, Chairman. And again, I am pleased that we have this opportunity to examine the
local plan before it goes to cabinet. So thank you for making that happen. I wanted to pick
up some points that colleagues have raised and coming from Steve Brodman, Bambrick's
presentation. Sorry, Steve. Wrong Steve. And I'll put them under the broad heading of consultation
if I try and bring them together. I've got a raft of questions. But one point I think,
back to Councillor Waters' question, I think when we did the site engagement study in February,
it was very much positioned as a site engagement. It was a four -week process. And from a member
point of view, I think our briefing said that it was targeted at landowners and developers.
I think therefore there's some confusion, certainly from a member point of view, based
on what we were told, that this was not a resident consultation per se, although resident
comments.
And I think a number of us actually, including yourself, Chairman, held public meetings for
residents because we felt it was important to escalate and elevate it, and I think members
did that.
But I think the intent of it, back to the point was, it wasn't billed as a consultation,
it was billed as a site's engagement exercise, principally with landowners and developers,
and that was the briefing.
So I think that's where some of the discussion and perhaps confusion in terms of how it was
positioned at the time and how it's being positioned now.
So, I think that may be worth noting for our summary as a follow -up for clarification,
for example.
I don't think we've got in this suite of information the Statement of Consultation.
Is that going to come out when that's published with the Cabinet Papers?
Mr. Bambrick's nodding at me.
So, again, that was something, I think, at the Reg 18 stage when we asked questions about
the Reg 18 statement of consultation. So I don't think we have the benefit of that for
this session today. So the session is taking place in the absence of that. I note in the
covering report that the legal officer refers to ensuring that this will comply with the
gunning principles and I think it's kind of where you opened up a little bit in terms
and making sure your follow -up question.
And I think that includes the fact that adequate time
is given for consideration and response,
and the results of the consultation
are conscientiously considered.
And I think that comes back to perhaps the public question
we had earlier on, is how that will be demonstrated.
And I think the question on materiality of changes
has already been answered.
And then in terms of the community engagement,
because I think this is really important. This is the opportunity for community engagement.
And again, Mr Bambrick went through some of the points. A lot of the information has been provided
digitally and a good proportion, if my colleague Councillor Clark was here, would be saying there's
a lot of people who don't have digital access and I wonder what opportunity there is for drop -in
sessions for those communities who are potentially receiving large volumes of development in
the north, for example. And I know in previous local plan consultation exercises there have
been sessions offered in community halls and so on and so forth. Because I think it's really
important for some of these communities that there is an opportunity. And I say not everybody
has access to websites, social media, whatever a digital exhibition board is. So I think
it is important, given the importance of this local plan and the significance for certain
communities, I'm not saying that there should be one in every town, village across the county,
but there's probably ten that are significant and so I wonder what how
that process will will operate and again I share councilman's questions and
concerns over the buffer but I think that question has been put in I have a
site in the small sites that said it needs to be demonstrated that the existing site
is no longer required or could be accommodated elsewhere, and that's for 50 dwellings,
well that 50 would push us below the number, for example. And that's in the published
small sites list, so perhaps not all small sites are currently assessed as being deliverable.
Thank you.
Mr Steve Bambrick - 1:47:04
Thank you. Thanks for the question. So again, just in terms of trying to deal with some
of those, first of all in terms of the Reg 18 engagement study, so Councillor Wilson
is correct that we launched a consultation or an engagement process on that and we were
particularly interested in making sure that we were assessing both kind of landowner and
kind of developer availability of sites.
But we also made it clear at the time
that it was a kind of resident facing consultation.
We did a huge amount of communication at the time,
including I think the leader did many of those
kind of comms events himself personally.
I mentioned earlier that we had 10 ,000 responses
to the kind of reg 18, 95 % of those were from residents. So I think it's clear from the
response that we've had that many, many people were engaged in that process. So whilst I
hear that there may be some that feel that they weren't, I think the results of the consultation
have we feel that many people that needed to respond have responded. There was a question
about the Statement of Consultation that published actually yesterday I think actually the Statement
of Consultation and therefore will be available for the cabinet decision and that obviously
will set out and does set out a kind of response to all of the kind of consultation responses
at the Reg 18 stage.
The other question I think from Casper Wilson was just about engagement at the Reg 19 stage.
So I mean we're very happy to look at mechanisms and what might be the most appropriate.
I mean I set out in broad terms in the presentation some of the areas that we're looking at.
In my experience, village hall presentations are not always the best way of engaging people.
I know I've spent many of my time sat in village halls with nobody turning up.
But that's not to say we rule it out, but I think we're certainly looking at use of
libraries, use of more direct use of our customer service and face -to -face opportunities are
areas that we are definitely exploring to make sure that we try as I said earlier to
maximise that level of engagement. There's more we can do with this recommendation from
this committee you'd like us to consider for example. Again we'd be very happy to look
at that. Thank you. My own village hall was packed
Cllr Simon Rouse - 1:50:00
for it just to say. But yeah. Councillor Broadbent.
Cllr Steven Broadbent - 1:50:05
Yeah just a quick one. I mean I don't recognise that we weren't trying to say to residents
you need to please give us your comments given it went in written newsletter, doing it in
videos, it went to town and parish councils, it was multi -channelled. And just to give you
the committee some reassurance of that, I've just pulled up one of the summary reports
I had at the end of the activity and out of all the thousands and thousands of site responses
That we got site response survey responses that we got
14 ,000 at least
Ninety four point one percent of those responses were from residents not to point five percent were from landowners and agents
So I definitely do not think it's right to say this was not targeted properly
94 % more than of all the responses came from residents. So I hope that gives you the reassurance you're looking for
Sorry, did you want to come back council Wilson or?
Cllr Stuart Wilson - 1:51:00
I understand that and I'm delighted there was that level of response. I think members of this council played a significant role in raising the matter to their residents.
So I'm basing on the hierarchy as it was presented to members when it was briefed as this is not a consultation, it's an engagement, we're checking site availability.
That is a very, very good point. It was not a consultation, it was an engagement, because
Cllr Steven Broadbent - 1:51:27
the consultation is this Reg19 one. And I do appreciate members play a big part in sharing
that, hence why members have been briefed. And I'll be asking members to do the same
again. The Council need to make sure, and I'm here to encourage, as many comments
through Reg19 as possible, and we'll do the multi -channel work and you'll speak in
your own local areas, I'm sure, and that's quite right. And indeed, one of the reasons
this session's very important and why I'm interjecting to make sure we're mindful
of the audience out there is to make sure that people are aware of the work that's
gone in and what the plan is and isn't and where we are with consultation. As the officer
said earlier, the consultation will formally start subjects cabinet on the 23rd of July
and the parameters of that are then set nationally.
I've got your councillor, don't worry.
Councillor Roberts.
Yes, thank you, chairman.
Cllr Mark Roberts - 1:52:25
I understand we'll be returning to subject to town centres and car parking later.
So I'd like to delve into that a bit more at that stage because it's a topic that we
have talked about previously.
But that does relate to this question about sites because there are sites that are in
here in that town centre in the regulation 19 site allocations that have not been identified
previously with the public and we talked about this when we discussed the regulation 18 sites
and the site survey that the town centre, let me get the word, densification approach
that there weren't sites identified and now there are.
There are a majority of them are council owned car parks and they have not been identified
previously and the public have not had a chance to comment on those until now.
But we'll get a chance to talk about that because that has more implications around
town centres strategy and vitality of high streets and so on.
The particular thing I wanted to pick up as well though was around the criteria around
green belt and grey belt in setting out this plan.
It's setting out a desire for the shape of the county
and development and protecting the green belt.
And that's been enshrined in this.
But there's a gap between what's being done in plan making
and what's been happening in development management.
In particular around whether the gap around
how grey belt is being assessed. So my understanding from in plan making with the green belt assessment,
we spent a lot of time at committee discussing this point. The criteria was that if national
landscape then not grey belt and that was what's enshrined in the green belt assessment
that was done and the sites that were the assessment areas that were assessed. So that
ruled out lots of areas. But in development management we are seeing a different criteria
being argued and that gives us a risk that in the meantime in the interim that decisions
are going to come forward to committee around planning applications in the Greenbelt, Greybelt
assessments that are using a different kind of criteria than what has been used for making
this plan. So I'm just interested in how that results because we could end up with the shape
of development in the county looking different from what has been laid out in the plan because
of these interim decisions and the gap between the criteria used for plan making and the
criteria being used in development management. Thank you. So perhaps if I could deal with
Mr Steve Bambrick - 1:55:34
that second question first and I'll pass to Richard on the town centre piece. So I
think to some extent, so I won't get into specifics, I don't know about the specifics,
but as a more general point, to some extent this comes back to the point about the level
of weight that might be attached to the plan and the evidence that sits behind the local
plan. So at the moment we don't have a Regulation 19 plan that's been agreed. We hope to do
so obviously. We go to Cabinet in July and we hope to do so and we will then need to
consider beyond that what weight we attach to individual applications as they come forward
in the system and the weight that we might also attach to some of the evidence that sits
behind the local plan as well. So again without getting into specifics I suspect some of the
answer to your question might lie in the amount of weight that can be attached as we sit here
today to the local plan and the evidence that sits behind it versus what might be able to
be attached to it going forward. I think the other thing to say is that the kind of grey
belt assessment that's done as part of the local plan is based on much bigger parcels
of land than I guess individual planning applications will be looking at. So again without going
kind of getting into the nuances of local plan preparation versus development management,
but as a general principle the answer to that may lie somewhere in terms of what weight
can be attached to local plan policies as they progress.
Cllr Mark Roberts - 1:57:20
Yeah and before going on to the other point, as I understood it though there was this point
in the, for the criteria for the Greenbelt assessment in plan making that if it's national
landscape then it wouldn't be great assessed as Greybelt. But the, what I've been testing
really is, is that same criteria being used or will it be used by case officers assessing
development proposals? And I'll need to answer that more specifically
Mr Steve Bambrick - 1:57:50
I guess in terms of the development management stuff perhaps outside of the meeting, again
other than to say, just to go back to the point I think that whatever the assumptions
that sit behind the local plan making policy we can't just assume that the evidence of
the local plan can just be attached full weight from the point of cabinet agreeing a Regulation
19 plan.
we can only ever attach limited weight however compelling that evidence might
feel and that might be where I think some of the difficulty with development
management might lie but I'm happy to talk more specifically about development
management approach perhaps outside the meeting but on the town centre.
Richard Ambrose - 1:58:34
Yeah if I could just pick up your questions around the town centre part of
it and particularly new sites I think you were saying that have come into that.
So first point I would make is just around the strategy.
So as we've set out, the strategy of the Council has been brownfield first.
And when we went out as part of the engagement exercise in February, we had an estimate around
how many houses that might be, and the estimate was 15 ,000 at the time.
So since then, we've been doing a lot of work to actually get the evidence behind that.
and the council does own a lot of the assets in some of the key strategic town
centres. So you are right, we've looked at our own assets and we've brought some
additional ones in that we own and have control of. They are mainly car parks so
completely agree with your point but that's the work that's happened from
the February March is to get that evidence and the assumptions around it
and we've got to a position of about thirteen and a half thousand and that
aligned with our strategy to stop us then going into grey belt green belt.
Yeah. And if I, if I may, um, I, um,
Cllr Mark Roberts - 1:59:44
obviously as brownfield sites, um, uh, a priority,
it's quite right to assess those.
The point really was that those haven't been raised with the public before now
and they have not had chance to comment on those specific sites.
Richard Ambrose - 2:00:00
Yep. Um, do accept that. Um, obviously being in the council's control, um,
Has enabled conversations across the whole council around around what we can do that
But that is partly also what the reg 19 consultation will have the ability to do for people to comment on those
I've got cancer field
Cllr Dean Field - 2:00:18
Thanks very much for the presentation
I'm looking at the nest sites in we take Stoke Mandeville for instance the summit
identified the 1650 houses as being refused several times by Buckinghamshire
Council and is going to appeal in October. Are you now not going, sorry are
you now going to allow planning on that site and it was only for 650 houses not
for the 1650 houses. I have that my first question, my second question if I may
is going back to the consultation.
I know there's a thing happening next week
with the towns and parishes.
A lot of work which will go towards speaking to the residents
will be going through the parish avenue.
I know there's going to be Facebook and social medias,
but the parish council are the ones who mainly deal with their close residents.
considering they're only they only meet once a month and the consultation
periods is six weeks do you think that we could have a team or the local
councillors can have a team similar to highways where we could get answers
within hours rather than wait ten days for email responses just before you
answer the questions just on the first point I don't want us to go into a
Cllr Simon Rouse - 2:01:56
specific sites, could you just elevate your answer to how you're going to handle whether
there's been historic applications, there are ongoing applications, just so we kind
of elevate it to a Buckinghamshire level?
Mr Steve Bambrick - 2:02:11
Yes, so there may well be sites that have got a history where applications have been
refused for various reasons that may be because they didn't conform with the previous strategy
the previous local plan, maybe that density was too low or design reasons or
highways reasons, there may be a variety of reasons why those
circumstances existed. This is a new strategy and we're developing this
within the confines of the requirement of 91 ,000
new homes across the county so we're having to make some difficult decisions
and that invariably does mean making choices about maximising sites in town centres and
also making some choices around parking provision, increasing density in those locations. It
also means revisiting sites that may have been refused in the past. So I think the direct
answer to your question is that yes we will as a consequence of the proposals here be
looking at bringing forward a site that may well have been refused in the past. The same
will apply on, I mentioned earlier about things like gypsy and traveller provision for example,
we're looking at regularising sites that may well have previously not been considered to
be appropriate because our requirements are different now. Frankly, the level of housing,
building that is required to take place in the county is almost tripling into you if
you look at that trajectory that I put up on earlier we're currently building just
over two and a half blocks just under two and a half thousand homes a year that's
got to go up in over the next four or five years to over five thousand homes per year
so that is not easy and it will make mean making some difficult choices sorry and the
The second question was about support for members.
Again, very happy to look at, I can't say today how that might look, but very happy
to look at what level of support we can have for members through the process.
Great, thank you.
Oh, so yeah.
If I can go back to my first question.
Cllr Dean Field - 2:04:32
So I understand, so when it goes to appeal, you won't be now fighting that clause, what
Understand what you're saying
What you're saying chair, but but but the Stoke Mandeville parish account. Sorry to cancel
Sorry council field. Sorry, just I'm just gonna interject it's really important
We don't get into individual sites and particularly sites where there is an appeal because we're not going to
Cllr Simon Rouse - 2:04:57
Say sorry off of this chap was chair. So
Cllr Dean Field - 2:05:06
So so my next my next question if I if I can so going back to the neighbourhood plan
So that would be now have to be adopted, sorry altered by your previous conversation.
Now this went to the polling station early yesterday, the neighbourhood plan for Stoke
Manville.
Are we saying that that plan is now automatically out of date if this goes through?
Thank you.
So I'll go back to my answer earlier.
Mr Steve Bambrick - 2:05:33
I think there's a hierarchy of plans and if the neighbourhood plan doesn't conform with
what ultimately is adopted in this plan.
So again, there's a decision to be made about when, because of course this plan still
needs to, it's still got a process to follow before we get to adoption, but once it's
eventually adopted, if the neighbourhood plan is not in conformity, then the local plan
takes precedence in a decision making.
So if the local community wants a neighbourhood plan to have weight in the decision making,
it needs to be in conformity with the local plan.
And I recognise that there are always these cliff edges for everybody in the process when
a new plan comes in.
And I go back to what I said earlier, it's the same for this council when there's a change
to national policy.
You know, you develop a local plan, it's in conformity with national policy, if that changes,
your plan immediately in some respects can come out of date and that's a frustration,
but that's unfortunately the process.
Thank you.
Councillor Collingwood.
Thank you.
Thank you, Chairman.
Cllr Alex Collingwood - 2:06:38
You talked about the buffer and the buffer no longer being required.
There was a query earlier on about, you know, what happens if the inspector says actually
you need to have more sites come back towards, because that's what happened when we did
local planning previously where there was a discussion with the local inspector and
he said, well, actually you need to put two or three more sites back in.
Can you give us a sort of quantum in terms of Reg 18, the number of sites and the sort
of volume of houses that would at least looked at and engage
with the public on compared to where we are on reg 19.
Because I got the impression when you saw the map earlier
on, there was like thousands of sites on left
and not very many sites on the right, which
is where we are on reg 19.
So just to give context, because I
think I want to make clear that in my mind,
no random new sites could come forward per se that haven't
already been promoted by somebody in reg 18, I think.
I was wondering if there was clarity of that part.
That's the first question.
Second bit is about how quickly you can do the plan.
You talked about we're going to go through us then to cabinet on the 23rd of July
and then in the blurb it then talks about,
well actually we're then going to submit by November.
And I'm like, guys, we know by the 6th of September pretty much
what the answer to the question is because you submitted it in July,
you've had a consultation by the 6th of September.
to be honest why can you not go quicker if you know what that's the answer is
based on all the consultations bring it forward to full counselling say September
or October roll in November so we can actually show look no no we are getting
on with this we are delivering and mr. inspector now pleased to play your part
and get this thing actually adopted that much quicker or is it the fact that
Dave already told us actually you're in you're in the queue and you'll get done
when you get done almost clarity of because what we're doing our partners
of government and inspector, you know, now you have to play your part. So just how that
dynamic works. And usually it's all through a sestry timeframe, but why can't you just
do it quicker?
Mr Steve Bambrick - 2:08:44
Okay, so first question, just in terms of the Reg 18. So I think we actually assessed
over 1 ,400 individual sites as part of the Reg 18 process and as I said earlier in the
presentation there were a number of the sites that we consulted on that were not included
in the overall numbers so we were at that stage looking at the 95 ,000 number and we
had a suite of sites that kind of got us to that 95 ,000. We had additional sites that
we were also consulting on that had we included those would have taken us well over 100 ,000
in terms of our overall provision but we haven't included them, all of them, but of course
those sites have been consulted on and so to go directly to your question about if through
the process the inspector asks us to reconsider any of the sites then those would be our first
protocol in terms of, you know, are there other sites that we might want to bring in.
You know, that's again potentially part of the process, we'll see where we get to.
Your question about how quickly we can do the plan, my view is we are going as quickly
as we can and I think it's important to say we conclude the Regulation 19 consultation
on the 6th of September we must, and I think Councillor Wilson referred to this in terms
of the legal advice, we must conscientiously consider the responses. Now if we receive
anywhere near the same level of response as we did at Reg 18, at Reg 19, that is not a
quick exercise. We will have a team of people, and we do have a team of people who will be
considering those and we will obviously want to as a council consider those and if there
are modifications we would like to propose to do so. And so if we close on the 6th of
September in order to take a report for example to September council we'd be having to do
that within a week or something like that it's just not simply not possible so I'm afraid
we are going as quickly as possible to be in that timetable.
I know Councillor Wilson, Councillor Waters, you want to do a further question.
Cllr Simon Rouse - 2:11:05
I'm going to jump to Councillor Nella for the first time and then I'll ask some questions
and come back to the both of you.
Thank you very much.
Cllr Frances Kneller - 2:11:13
Just picking up on some themes from Councillor Wilson and Councillor Roberts, the Regulation
18 annotated map was very useful.
Created a lot of interest and obviously a lot of consternation when people saw what
was being proposed and been very useful over the intervening months that we've now got
this regulation 19 annotated map. But I think the reaction could well be from people where
did they come from, those sites, but the other thing is phew, that site that I thought was
going to be developed is not. But of course we've got a bit of an interregnum, haven't
we, in terms of now and when the local plan is actually agreed because sites can come
forward speculative sites, there will be schemes that are coming through the process. So in
terms of working with the residents of Buckinghamshire, I just wondered whether there is a capacity
for a similarly annotated map which will show both the Regulation 19 proposed sites, but
also ones that show others that are kind of coming into the process in the interim, because
because there will be sites that we know that developers
are looking at and will bring forward because they can
till the local plan is there.
And also how we are going to handle the communications
with residents as well, because explaining that
because we've got this regulation 19 position,
but we're not there yet, we haven't got it signed off,
that there will be sites that will come through
that people thought were done and dusted
and put to bed as not going to happen.
So I'm just concerned that we actually have a system
whereby residents across Buckinghamshire
are quite clear that this point of bringing out regulation 19
is not effectively the local plan map,
and this is what we're happening.
And that as sites come through and as we discuss
other issues within that and the process,
that people are quite clear what this map shows, what the elements are and that there
is an explanation because it would be very easy to think I've seen a map and it's not
on there and then six months down the line we suddenly see these sites come back into
play because people can. Thank you.
Mr Steve Bambrick - 2:13:47
Yeah, thank you. So I think in terms of the question around trying to map, if you like,
some of the, well let me go back first of all, so and repeat perhaps just an answer
that I've given previously which is about how we might deal with speculative schemes.
So as the plan progresses then we will progressively be able to attach more weight to it, we'll
at individual circumstances. There may be circumstances where we feel we have to recommend
approval of schemes, but equally there may be schemes that we're refusing. I think your
request for us to seek to perhaps map some of that, I think has the potential to confuse.
I mean I certainly wouldn't want to mix that, any kind of map up with what's contained within
the local plan. We're going through a kind of quasi -judicial process with the local plan,
we need to make sure that what we contain within the local plan map is the local plan
proposals. I understand the point about, you know, we might need to just think about how
we communicate what's happening in the interregnum. I'm not entirely convinced that the best way
of doing that is through some sort of combined map, but I do agree that the kind of communication
in that period is important.
Cllr Steven Broadbent - 2:15:11
Just to give a bit of reassurance, one thing we've asked Steve and the team to do is on
the Reg 19 pages, there's a link back to some of the stuff that still might be up there
in Reg 18.
So for example, to see that original annotated map, that can be pointed to, but it'd be
more confusing to have two maps on one page about where we are now.
So hopefully that will help give that clarity.
And just a point on other sites and people in the interregnum,
as you rightly say, developers will undoubtedly be bringing forward proposals still.
They always will.
And in the same way, they are likely to be one of the most vocal groups
that make representations to the Reg19 process and probably to the inspectors themselves.
So I think it's a really good point about how we explain that to
Residents to say this is the local plan it brings with it as we talked about
Some protections and influences where things go use but that won't stop developers still putting in
applications and that in itself will will maybe be to be
confusing so
We maybe we just look at the wording to help
I suppose the only area just I would just find helpful just to explore in that is that
Cllr Simon Rouse - 2:16:30
I understand with kind of applications that are in process or may come but there are specific
sites that have been approved that are effectively in the windfall that aren't shown on the map
and is there a specific reason why they couldn't be shown so that because I think there is
a risk that residents think those sites are no longer going to be used.
Cllr Steven Broadbent - 2:16:54
So, can we include on the map the commitments in any way?
So currently the local plan has a base date of 2024 but only planning permissions that
Ms. Charlotte Morris - 2:17:11
have been permitted within that first year have been taken account of.
So that is a lag for the last year.
So once we've completed the reg 19, before we submit the plan to government for independent
examination, we will be updating as far as possible all the permissions that have happened.
And so I think we could probably share the major sites with planning permissions, but
I think we would have to make that really clear that that's a snap point in time, because
obviously it moves daily.
So, sorry, is it on this specific point?
Okay, go on.
Cllr Simon Rouse - 2:17:50
Chairman, thank you very much, Charlotte.
So what is a major site?
Cllr Jackson Ng - 2:17:54
What's the definition of a major site that is going to be represented?
And then second question is, would there be scope for the map to also reflect pending
applications as well?
That's what I was asking.
Thank you.
Cllr Simon Rouse - 2:18:11
So I think the pending application point has been answered around potential confusion.
So I think we just I think just getting clarity now on sites that are effectively committed and included that aren't on the map
I think is where we I
Think we'd have to look to see what would be appropriate because we don't want to confuse residents
Ms. Charlotte Morris - 2:18:26
But obviously take your point where a significant site has been given planning approval. It's helpful to have that as context
On that point, my understanding going forward, the government has said anything above 150
Cllr Alex Collingwood - 2:18:41
houses is deemed to be major. That's my understanding. So if you use that methodology, the government
already laid out to us and said anything above 150 has to be in effect, seeding sites in
effect, that would then be deemed seeding site change.
So I think, where I think we're at is we're asking about how you can help the public understand
Cllr Simon Rouse - 2:19:00
committed sites and how those committed sites fit into the map.
So I think between now and the cabinet discussion, if we can leave you to go away and kind of
answer that and particularly be clear about the definitions of a major site.
I'm going to ask my questions and I'm going to come back to Councillors Waters, Wilson
and Stutchfield.
If I could just ask, because I'm conscious we've been at this now for an hour and a half,
if we could be really focused in the further questions.
So I just want to come back to the soundness test in particular.
So, the strategy is really clear, brownfield, greenfield, greybelt, greenbelt, and you can
see clearly how that's been executed through in the plan.
I suppose the critical question for me that flows from it when you look at particularly
the infrastructure gap, and we'll get into the infrastructure in a bit more detail, but
I just want to talk about the 0 .9 billion gap in infrastructure.
Can you just help me understand how is a planning inspector likely to look at that infrastructure
infrastructure gap in terms of the sustainability, therefore, of the developments that are put
forward, because clearly part of the soundness test is not just the strategy and the approach
strategy but it being sustainable.
And if we just do it to understand, we are obviously sitting with a significant infrastructure
gap.
Later I'm just going to test whether it's like is that really the amount or should it
be more, but just with that $0 .9 billion, how does that affect sustainability?
The other area is just on the new towns.
And so we added Cheddington and – forgive me, I've forgotten – Cheddington and Beach
Hampton.
They were also in the – as you put in the paper, they were also in the new town submissions
that were put forward but weren't shortlisted.
So again, from a – how a planning inspector will look at the fact we've now included
them in our plan, but they weren't shortlisted for the new towns.
Are there any risks that the reasons they didn't make the new town shortlist mean
that the planning inspector may look at that and say those are not deliverable sites because
the Newtown's task force, and I'm maybe going to why they were refused by the Newtown, well,
not shortlisted by the Newtown task force, but is there a risk with those two new sites?
I suppose I then kind of want to move to, I think we've done quite a lot of questioning
around the buffer, but the buffer is clearly an area where we're just being really confident
that we don't think, you know, are there risks that by not having a buffer we could end up
by accident with a shortfall against the target that therefore means the plan doesn't, isn't
met.
Again, just to gain real confidence around that buffer risk.
I then want to just move to the, so again, I think part of the confidence in the plan
is also about the public's confidence in the plan.
And I talked to the last strategic, sorry, the last JH committee about my concern in
the last phase some of the communication void was filled by misinformation and that misinformation
leading the public to have concerns.
So a good example of that is some people were suggesting that the sites that were put forward
were sites put forward by the council rather than the fact that there were sites put forward
by developers or landowners or indeed anybody that could put a site forward even if they
no link to it.
And I suggested that between the Regulation 18 and the Regulation 19, effectively doing
some sort of myth busting or clarification communication so people understood exactly
what happened in that Reg 18, but it's also therefore important for people understanding
where they now find themselves with the Regulation 19 so that when you do consult, and it's obviously
consultation this time rather than an engagement people are really clear about
what it is that is included what it is that's being asked of them and
anticipating some of the misinformation that could get out there and a good
example of that I think the committee is giving I think some good stiff for you
here around there is a real communication challenge with the public
about applications that will happen between now and the plan adoption so
So I've already had residents say to me, does that mean this site therefore is not going
forward?
And even though it's been approved by the Secretary of State.
And so I think it's really important that the communication approach, we're really clear
about that and that you anticipate what some of the misinformation or confusion that could
be created for people are.
Those are I think my main questions on – sorry, one of the questions on the – sorry, the
soundness tests.
So are we – where we have under the collaboration exercise that therefore the surrounding areas
have said they can't support our housing, we're meeting it all within Buckinghamshire,
but – and I understand there's a statement of common ground that needs to be put forward.
Could you just give us how you now view the risk that other areas may come to us and say
we, we need your help to deliver our housing targets, where that now leaves us in our plan
and have we mitigated that risk in our plan? Thank you, Chair. So perhaps just working
Mr Steve Bambrick - 2:24:18
through those. So first of all in terms of infrastructure gap. So certainly in my experience
and I think in all of our experience it's not unusual for local plan infrastructure
to delivery plans to have a gap and maybe a bit of a misnomer in terms of describing
it as a gap. It's a gap in terms of what we're expecting the developments to pay for and
what is expected to be paid for from utility providers, public bodies, etc. And we would
expect, for example, for a lot of the kind of utility providers, public bodies, that
they would be including within their asset plans going forward. Part of the purpose of
the infrastructure delivery plan is say we're planning over the next 20 years for these
developments. You infrastructure providers need to know these developments are going
to happen in that period. You need to make sure that you are also planning to invest
in your part of this as well. And that's the bit that the inspector will have the utility
and the other bodies at the examination and he will be testing, he or she will be testing
whether or not their plans are as robust and again they through their input into our infrastructure
delivery plan have given us those assurances that actually we understand.
So there's a requirement therefore for those bodies to step up to be able to kind of meet
gap but I think in terms of the test for the inspector it's not unusual and I
think they will want to get some satisfaction there but I think we're
comfortable with the satisfaction we've had from those bodies to date.
You ask also about new towns and you're right there are a couple of locations
that were considered as part of the new towns Commission and not included as
part that I don't think they were excluded because they were not deliverable or not suitable.
They were just excluded for other reasons and for reasons that they chose better sites
elsewhere in the country. And in some respects actually I think they are good sites, they
are sites that are suitable and are developable and actually I think if we were not to include
them in our plan there is a risk that at some point later down the line they
would come back as new towns which would then mean we'd be planning for our 91 ,000
homes and these sites would potentially come in at a later date as new towns as
well which would be on top of that 91 ,000 so I think it's I don't think
it's risky at all to include them. You asked about the buffer I think I mean
to some extent kind of gone over that ground.
But again, other than to say,
whether we describe it as a buffer
or whether we describe this as confidence
in the sites that we've got in the plan,
either way, part of the process of the examination
is to test that level of confidence
and for the inspector to reach a conclusion
about whether we've got enough sites in the plan.
and as I think I mentioned to Councillor Collingwood part of that process might
include the inspector asking us to look at other sites or include other sites you
know so I don't rule that out I'm not saying that we plan for that but we've
got the ability to look at that if we're asked to do so in the process you
mentioned the point about public confidence in the plan again that feels
like that for the emerging point that's coming from this committee which we're
very happy to look at. I mentioned in the comms piece earlier in the presentation
that we'll be looking at publishing kind of FAQs but there'd be more that we can
do around that kind of myth busting so again happy to look at that and then
your final point was around the collaboration so and again this is a
really good a really good question a really good point to to emphasise
because it is a two -way thing actually that you know we've obviously been
having conversations with other authorities and they've been having
conversations that to date nobody has come to us and said can you take any of
our needs now to some extent that might just be dependent on where they are in
their plan making process however the fact that we've reached the point we've
reached and got to the point where actually exhausting almost our
possibilities of meeting our needs without having to go into the Greenbelt
means that we're now in a place where if somebody were to come to us and say can
you accommodate 10 ,000 houses in Buckinghamshire, well our answer to that
is the only way to do that now would be to move into the Greenbelt because we've
exhausted virtually all of the other options and we you know exceptional
circumstances therefore in our view don't exist for us to be
accommodate in other people's needs. So again, having a plan at this stage
becomes a good defence and our best defence against those duty to cooperate
com - it's not duty to cooperate anymore but against those conversations. Can I
just give you my view on three of those bits? The new towns, they definitely
Cllr Steven Broadbent - 2:29:49
weren't exempted. Governments narrative was they're bringing forward a few but
they did look at more. That doesn't mean they were unviable, they were just
preferred. On the buffer, the buffer is a lovely word to use, let's be really frank
for the people watching, this means we'd be showing where we could put 95 ,000
homes rather than 91 ,000 and actually if you want to draw some parallels in the
last bit of the conversation about duty to cooperate that would suggest there
was more spare capacity, shall we call it, in Buckinghamshire. I don't believe that
capacity exists because of the strength of the work that we've done.
I'm bringing forward 95, call it buffer, call it headroom, has been referred to.
The council would have no control over those sites.
Indeed, we don't have control over the, in terms of their timing, and we don't have that
now.
So it wouldn't be, here's a little reserve list and we'll keep that to the side.
they would all be available all from the start.
And I don't think, looking after,
trying to look after the best interests of the county,
they're bringing forward an inflated figure
when the last 10 local plans have not done that
for their own need.
Residents will quite rightly ask,
why are you proposing to do more,
even though our numbers have gone up 43 % already.
And on infrastructure, I hope the committee have seen,
the letter I've written to our local MPs to say they have a role to play here to champion the need
of their residents and of this county to get the infrastructure required given they also
wrote the manifesto to say, three of them did, to say we want a million and a half more homes across
the country. That's where the numbers have come from for Buckinghamshire to be 91 ,000. You can't do this
without having the right level of infrastructure and to give you some sucker on this, in recent
days interviewed by BBC Southeast, the relevant Secretary of State Steve Reid relating to
the Kemp plan has committed that the infrastructure will be there and the Government of Satterbay
Infrastructure Task Force.
I will now be writing in there to say we want our conversation with that Infrastructure
Task Force.
And on top of that, there is now through Homes England more funding routes that may be available
when sites are brought forward to help bridge infrastructure gaps or at least help with
the cash flowing of that with developers.
So that's a next level point, but we were doing everything we can to make that point
for the residents of Buckinghamshire who need the infrastructure, including infrastructure
that has been promised before and would make a difference, such as the Aylesbury link,
the rail link, given that connexion up to Winslow is still required.
So I've probably said more than I intended to on that point, but it is so important that
this will have a fundamental impact on the county, 91 ,000 homes.
We have to have infrastructures and make sure that that development is mitigated.
Cllr Simon Rouse - 2:33:02
So I'm going to come back to Councillors Waters, Wolfson and Stutchby.
If you can just ask that they are sort of focused, succinct questions as your second
go round.
Thank you, Councillor Waters.
Yeah.
Cllr Jonathan Waters - 2:33:13
The question I've got is looking at the five -year housing supply.
And obviously we've got the, which I'm really pleased if we can land this right in the beginning
so that it actually is there.
and obviously what the lower figure to start with, and then we get 2029, 30 year, up to
the 5030. Presumably you have talked to the inspectors who have been coming in and looking
at this particular point, and the other element of that is we're already struggling at this
point to deliver on planning the numbers we've got, and it takes a long time to get through
the planning process, are we actually, have we all started to build into our budgets or
think about it the team, because just getting the team and an experienced team to do this
is going to be really tough to get those numbers and we need to be up and running to do that.
Really good if we had a design person and just also a helpful hint on the previous item
about sites which are in the windfall that are not showing on the map, even if we just
had a list of all the sites in which have got permission and the numbers that are being
counted at the windfall that goes to cabinet. You know where those figures are coming from.
Even if you can't get it on the map, I think that would be just useful because it's a record
of where they are and it's recognising it. Just to add, we are going to cover future
Cllr Simon Rouse - 2:34:39
GIH planning resources in terms of the current planning resources challenge, but just want
I'll cover the point about future.
Thank you.
Mr Steve Bambrick - 2:34:48
So yes, we've been engaged with the inspector through the advisory visits in terms of our
approach to the local plan.
So that's been shared through the preparation process.
I think there's two points to say.
One is part of what I was saying in answer to a previous question, the certainty that
the new local plan will give us in terms of the evidence that sits behind it and the work
that's been done will enable us to remove some of the barriers that we find, slow the
process down at the moment.
So a lot of the backwards and forwards that tends to happen in the planning process, in
my experience derives from that kind of uncertainty that comes from not having up -to -date plans
and up -to -date evidence that sits behind it because as an applicant you know exactly what
you need to apply for when you've got an up -to -date plan that says this is what you
need to apply for and we need this, this and this and so the process becomes clearer.
We also as a service know that there are changes that we will need to make and there's work
that we're already doing through our kind of planning improvement work we've
got planning pathways for specific types of applications that we are looking to
develop so as you say chair we'll perhaps come back at a later meeting to
talk about some of the more processing side of that but yes Thank You
Councillor Wilson
Thank You chairman I think there's always gonna be a section in the feedback
Cllr Stuart Wilson - 2:36:23
around what happens in between times between the local plan can officers and
cabinet member just provide some reassurance. There's a lot of focus on
NES and new allocations but obviously there's some existing allocations
coming through that they will be assessed against the prevailing plans
and the prevailing five -year housing land supply I recognise that because
clearly there would be a we're banking on all of those because they're all part
of the 91 ,000 and I think residents and town and parish councils and members
would like some reassurance that therefore they will be evaluated on
their own merits and not we have to get these in to the numbers because we can't
afford to slip because we have no buffer so I think that's a I think everybody
listening in would like some reassurance they'll be treated on their own merits
And the second point, and you'll love this one, the VALP, I believe, had a net addition
to the Greenbelt, looking at Councillor Strachan and others.
So did anything in the Greenbelt assessment, and given the complications we've got with
Green and Greybelt and the rest of it that's changed since, was there any consideration
of adding to the Greenbelt and or the Chiltern National Landscape that would
remove uncertainty for certain areas that at the moment may be considered to
be at risk. So I would be interested to get an answer to that question. So just in
Mr Steve Bambrick - 2:38:11
terms of both of those, so in terms of the existing sites and existing plans so
Yes, to confirm. They will be treated on their own merits. They will be considered against
the prevailing plans. It goes back to an answer I gave earlier, which is those existing plans
will continue to have full weight in the process. I guess it's like looking at these things
as a set of scales in many ways. The prevailing plans have more weight than the draught plan.
As that draught plan progresses we will increasingly see that tip to more weight being attached
to the draught plan but as we sit here today those prevailing plans remain important, remain
extant, we will be considering applications against it.
In terms of your question around Greenbelt, so the Greenbelt assessment was done, there
were no recommendations there for making amendments or additions to the Greenbelt and therefore
there were no amendments or boundary changes proposed here. The process for extending the
national landscape is not a local plan process, that would be a national process that would
have to take place and there was a process that was underway that got paused but that's
something for the local plan
Cllr Robin Stuchbury - 2:39:44
Councillor Stutchbury. Thank you I listen to the discussion I just like a little
bit more clarification than the why the beach am North Bucks Beach Hampton site
was because you might not be in where that it was Catherine Perry and Henry
the fifth so it's been a probably a major person in our history was
connected to the site and also it's a very historic site because it's connected to
James the first but that aside it's always been in conjecture if you know
the site it's a very much a very small parish it sits in that was in a very
small stream bed it's is confined within its whatever and I can't quite work out
why it got such a large allocation because there's nothing there of a
infrastructure note now I'm not a representative for that parish but but
or that area but as a North Bucks person I just find it strange to understand why it
got into the site, why it was so favoured.
So I'm going to, that's moving into a site specific discussion so I'm going to, I think
the point's been made, your historical knowledge is impressive but I'm going to suggest that
Cllr Simon Rouse - 2:40:52
one's taken offline by the relevant members about their nest.
That has been very hopefully, well I've certainly felt rigorous examination of the sandless
tests, and hopefully you've got, I'll try and do a summary at the end of what the points
I think we've made are. We're going to take a 10 minute, I've had a request for a 10 minute
break, actually I'll take a request for a break, I'm going to make it 10 minutes. When
we get back, I'm conscious we've had a very full morning already. When we move into the
next phase, I'm going to ask members to, just, they're going to get members to have one contribution,
please be focused in those contributions so that we can try and do good examination of
the themes, but we also aren't here at midnight going through things. So if we can reconvene
at 10 to 1.

7 The Local Plan for Buckinghamshire

Cllr Simon Rouse - 2:41:36
Okay.
I'm going to bring us back.
So just to recap, if I can ask, I want us to try and move at a slightly faster pace
through the next phase, having done that detailed test, so if members can keep their questions
to questions and succinct, that would be helpful.
So we're going to move on to infrastructure.
Questions on infrastructure?
Councillor Stutchbury.
I just finished my mouth full of food.
I apologise.
Cllr Robin Stuchbury - 2:42:11
It's important when assembling this plan to understand the matters of infrastructure
around drainage, sewage and water management.
Now what's evident to me in reading through it is that when it mentions
major rivers Colin doors it misses out one of the major rivers being the River
Great is and also Steve will know because we have had many discussions
about sewage and drainage and developments we have a situation where
We're relying on gramping conditions presently
And I am not assured that we have got through the Thames area or the angular water area
The robustness to be able to guarantee the development going forward against the management of the sewage and drainage
That's one part of the question. The other part of it is the flood
alleviation the management which
Richard and I were apparently in correspondence over,
which is an ongoing conversation.
So I fear that the whole nestled North Bucks area,
which you've alluded to being the largest area of growth
in your presentation, is the least able to cope
with the sewage drainage and management of that.
And everything in North Buckinghamshire contributes,
the entire contributories of the streams and rivers
in North Buckinghamshire add to the combined collection of the River Great Ouse, that being
from Stiebercleden and that being from anywhere else, it all ends up in the same place. And
I fear that we are walking towards something which we have no ability to address. If you
can tell me you've got robust policies which you can leave an outside agency to deliver,
please tell me that but I don't feel at the moment we're there and you and I have
discussed this in cabinet in different places and you've given the answers on
those historical questions and I respect to that but I don't think we are and
there's a linear corridor water management between Buckingham and North
and Stony Stratford because Buckinghamshire doesn't stand in isolation it
stands amongst Northamptonshire Buckinghamshire and every when it comes
to water catchment area. I'm not reassured that we are anywhere close to understanding
the dynamics of that. If you do, and I've got it wrong, I'd be very pleased, but I
have fear we're not there yet and nothing can really build manageable and sustainable
if this isn't catered for.
Mr Steve Bambrick - 2:45:09
So, thank you. So, perhaps a couple of things to say, so we, as I think we said earlier,
in preparation of the plan and the infrastructure delivery plan, and also things like water
cycle study, which is another component part of the evidence base that sits behind the
plan we have prepared those in conjunction with the water companies and
the providers and as part of that preparation we have
prepared those documents in accordance with kind of the you know what the NPPF
requires we've engaged and used what they've told us in terms of their needs
to be able to plan for it.
So what I can't do is answer for them.
What I can do is say the steps that we've taken
in engaging with them, in preparing the plan positively,
in using that evidence to support the local plan
is all done in accordance with the process
that we're expected to go through.
Now, and therefore, I feel much more comfortable
to say I feel that bringing those sites forward in the future should be a much more positive
experience than where we've been in the past. Again, I go back to, I think previous local
plans haven't always had that same level of engagement and that may have also led to some
of the issues that we've been dealing with more locally recently. But all I can say is
I think those engagements are absolutely critical
and have happened as part of this process.
And that evidence does sit there behind the local plan
to help support it.
Brief bit back on that, and I respect your answer.
I think this can ongoing discussion.
Cllr Robin Stuchbury - 2:47:08
But you say that they've given you detail.
Have they given you the detail of the actual limits
of the water availability in the Anglia water area,
which is actually 20 % or more of Buckinghamshire.
So, because there is no water now,
if we turn the taps on today,
everybody turns them on in Buckingham MK, whatever.
We, the taps don't work because there's no water now.
So what are they offered you in responses?
Because you say they've, they're on it.
I know of schemes which I don't think
is relevant to this discussion.
but I do fear that the situation's been supercharged by Bedfordshire and whatever
and being a new venture part but all these things have an acid impact on our
drinking water. We can't have houses we can't turn a tap on, we can't drink water
and they can't actually function so they won't need to worry about flushing the
sewage away because they won't have any water to actually take it out. So I'm
not sure we've got the groundwater and that to actually do these houses. It's nothing
against being against houses. I think that infrastructure isn't in place and I think
that isn't being in place before this plan and I fear it won't be in place after the
plan is agreed.
Mr Steve Bambrick - 2:48:37
So again as part of that engagement, you know, the part of the process is for them to acknowledge
and recognise where those existing concerns might be and they have rightly done so. So
I think we're all in the same place in terms of understanding where we are presently. The
question for them is do they understand the issues that they're dealing with and have
they got the strategic plans in place over the next 20 years to resolve them and to help
deliver the planned development and the answer to those two questions is yes.
Now so it doesn't mean to say they've got a solution today, you know, flick a switch
and it's solved.
The question is can they align their strategic plans with the development that's being proposed
in that area and that's the question that's being answered as part of the infrastructure
delivery plan.
So in that sense we are working with them.
Thank you for your answer.
I think we're going to be carrying on this conversation because it's not an exact science,
is it?
Let's be truthful.
Councillor Moore.
Thank you, Chairman.
I appreciate this has been covered in our previous session, but I just want to come
Cllr David Moore - 2:49:48
back to it because £6 .5 billion is a humongous number, and we see national government defund
our pots, our budgets.
We have seen the huge impacts that infrastructure has taken, and we seem to have a national
issue with following up infrastructure with development.
I appreciate this is not just a local issue.
But why isn't central government putting more resources to fill this 0 .9 billion -pound
gap?
There's a major delivery risk here.
How are we going to ensure that the utility providers are going to cough up, provide,
obviously, this funding?
And what are we doing to lobby central government to actually meet their fair share here?
Because the resounding feedback I'm getting from residents, from stakeholders, is there
is not the required infrastructure.
And if they're going to put a £70 ,000 -per -home levy of infrastructure, how is that going
to be fulfilled, and what are we doing to ensure that we fill this gap?
Thank you.
The leader might want to come in on the second part of that question, but just perhaps if
Mr Steve Bambrick - 2:50:59
I deal with the first point around the gap and the kind of test that we're going through
for the local plan. So we're required to work with infrastructure providers to make sure
we are assessing the infrastructure needs that are arising as a consequence of the development.
We're doing that and have done that.
As part of that, and part of my answer to Councillor Stutchbury is it's important those
infrastructure providers are therefore also planning themselves for when this development
comes forward so that they are also investing in what they need to invest in and in part
that will fill some of that gap.
There will however still need to be some further engagement with government and others about
how we either accelerate or fill that gap in other ways. I mean just one reflection
and one look back about where we've been for example in terms of delivering the current
growth in Aylesbury. So that's been supported by things like HIF funding which is Homes
England funding and it may be that we need to lean into and attribute more of that type
of funding which kind of brings forward some of the infrastructure earlier in the future,
but that's a conversation that probably sits outside of the local plan specifically.
Yeah, I'll pick up a bit of that, David, as well.
Cllr David Moore - 2:52:29
Cllr Steven Broadbent - 2:52:32
So yeah, I made reference earlier to the relevant Secretary of State Steve Reid and the ministers
over where they are on this situation.
I think it's fair to say there's a current belief that developer funding will cover everything,
but that's incredibly naive and flawed, and as Steve alluded to earlier, it is very common
that local plans would still have some uncertainty about the full funding.
I will continue my lobbying, and indeed my letter to MPs is to also say we have a shared
endeavour here because this impacts not only, you know, not a specific ward or a specific
constituency alone, how we move around, how water is connected, what the accumulative
effect of that might be, will mean we'll need some upgrades to the existing infrastructure
as well.
And in some cases, that might not be directly where the development is.
Sewerage is a good example because you can just take capacity and create a problem further down
the line. So I'll continue making that point. I do also play a part on the Inclusive Growth
Committee at the LGA, which is the National Local Government Association, where I've made sure we've
made that point. So the sector as a whole is saying this is a very big ambition that you went
out with to do one and a half million homes across the country, there needs to be more
central government money to help unlock it. Now there are some changes on specifics. So
for example, Great British Railways coming in is a further opportunity to say things
like the Aylesbury Link or the rail capacity upgrades. Same with national highways. But
as we've just seen, funding for what was already planned to be infrastructure improvements
through something called RISC -III on roads, lots of that is beginning to be taken away
because they've made the decision to not touch welfare but do that to fund defence
spending.
That is the reality.
So plans that were already in place nationally, which would include Buckinghamshire to a point,
on infrastructure have fallen away.
So I'll continue to make those representations into government.
And we all have, both the council and the MPs, must continue to press the case for Buckinghamshire.
Aylesbury is already one of the most congested towns.
All of our roads are stretched.
And so there's a bit of lobbying and there's a bit of showing, frankly, to government.
We've, you know, we're doing our part.
We're working with developers.
We're using things like the HIF fund to make the most of what's available to do this positive
approach so that we might be able to outline not only what is required but how it could
be funded.
So I'll be having further meetings again with Homes England to bring them in to say you're
going to have to forward fund some of this.
Infrastructure first will be required as well.
But we are not the only people grappling with it.
But I think this committee, if I'm checking from the nods around the room, would agree
that approach that there must be provision made from central government and through its
arms length bodies like national highways and so on to make sure that things get funded.
Just a slight align to that, we will obviously, the local plan and Steve Bambrick has mentioned
it earlier, will allow us to say we now have the framework that when these sites come forward,
you almost know the bare minimum of all the requirement that's there.
And so deviation from that will hopefully be much more difficult for developers and
others to achieve.
but all along I've said the number is eye -wateringly big, too large, but we've shown how that can
be accommodated through this plan, but it has to come with more money, so it'd be
good to get your support on that approach.
But obviously, as we've said on the infrastructure plan, they come forward with the plan.
So, we have to work in partnership.
So, for example, with the NHS provision, it is a 20 -year plan, so things will change over
time as well, but we have to make sure that funding stays there.
So the 6 billion was at least, and of course over that 20 -year period, the price tag may
go up through inflation if nothing else, but the requirement must be laser -like focused.
And it might be too complicated for now, but I do think because of that allocation in the
local plan, it means that those sites, we will be more readily able to say you must
play a part in infrastructure compared to not having a plan where anything that would
come forward would maybe just look in and of itself as opposed to playing part of a
local plan picture.
So it doesn't make necessarily huge differences, but it does mean it's very clear up front
what is needed for development.
Councillor Waters.
Thank you, Jay.
I think some things which we've picked up already on the infrastructure, it is going
Cllr Jonathan Waters - 2:58:00
to have to be this link between ourselves and government and various bodies to actually
achieve things.
We all know who are on planning that a developer will pay for what is relevant to their site
and the new residents coming in and some of the periphery around that, but will not go
further than that.
and what I'm not sure in terms of the funds you put forward in terms of what's needed,
the 6 billion, does that include the wider area?
So what we know, obviously my ward's in the south, but in the north,
a lot of this development's going to come there, the new towns, all of those things.
The connectivity with that and the employment zones, if we don't get that right,
and get that right in a timely fashion, the economic and the building out of these sites
are just not going to happen because you haven't got there.
So if you look at Aylesbury, if we didn't have the money and brought the roads forward,
we couldn't do that.
So it's getting these things right.
Cllr Steven Broadbent - 2:59:10
Look, I mean, what I think Steve said earlier, this doesn't fix all the infrastructure requirement
Buckinghamshire, which is going to be very clear about that because that, you know, the way this
has followed is what's set out in the local plan requirements, provision process. So I won't just
be lobbying on a local plan point, we'll continue to make the case for better transport, it's a
great one, better connectivity. You will see in there, I think it was about 1 .2 billion or
something for busses and other kind of public transport connectivity, that will obviously have
a bigger benefit in some areas and if we were to get rail links and so on that
that would be used for everyone but it is not the job of the local plan
unfortunately to to drive all the infrastructure requirement that is on us
but in particular as you know the the government area that can look at through
local government of place shaping that's for us to continue to make good use of
106 and seal and then continue to lobby on what is required more broadly for our
For our County and the things that I said in answer to councillor more
That but it will suggest that bars even higher
because already planned national work has now been diluted but
you know, we will will continue to
to press the case for our areas, holding developers to account on what's required will be vital
though because I view that at least 6 billion, 6 .5 billion has been almost the bare minimum.
Could I just finish the point though? The point really at the end of that is, as planning
Cllr Jonathan Waters - 3:00:53
committees in the end, what we're going to finish off with, if for instance the points
about the water and the sewage and things in the north not being right, we're going
of having to put Grampian clauses on, holding up development, get ourselves into a difficulty
with a five -year housing supply because we're not going to be able to build out. So if we
don't get those things right, you actually create a time bomb that's not there. So it
is these wider issues actually are completely linked. So I know you've probably got that
point, but I just wanted to raise it. Yeah, I've got that point and while you've
Cllr Steven Broadbent - 3:01:27
raised it, we ought to just, again, for people watching, that there is a strange quirk in
this whole plan, which is we will play our part in the sense we have a legal duty to
bring forward local plan, but it is developers who will develop out and yet we must meet
the five -year land supply. So part of the lobbying I will also do is to say the changes
we need is for national government to recognise that the council is then not in control of
developer build -outs and the applications.
We can influence that obviously through the council sides,
but if there was a slowing down
of bringing forward development
to risk the five year land supply,
that would push us into a greater risk
of future speculative development,
which clearly we do not want to have.
So we'll continue to press that case as well.
I think what you're saying about Grampian rights and others
is one part of things that could slow down development,
but this is a 20 -year plan and even getting over the line with having it with the inspector and the inspector
sitting in judgement on it, that's frankly just the start because then there's the
20 -year period will begin
Thank you. Councillor Collingwood. I'm only doing one contribution.
Thank you chairman.
Cllr Alex Collingwood - 3:02:48
In terms of infrastructure, one of the things that's curious is you've protected certain roads which you've physically listed, but you've not specifically protected the East West Rail Ersby Link.
Because the concern you could have, and we've learnt this from the previous local plan in Wickham, if you do not protect the physical land around the Link itself, you will get developers nibbling away at it.
So now that we're looking to Bournen, which is one of our TR9 policies,
is only a walking and cycling route because you can't physically have a rail line on it
because the developers have built a lot over it.
So I'm surprised that's not in there as a specific policy that says,
so I looked at page 384 and it only talks about roads, it doesn't talk about LSB Link at all.
And then we look at SB10, which is the transport piece, it's generic.
Whereas on IN2, which is page 400, health care and education infrastructure,
it's much more specific. It says any proposal above 10 or more dwellings. Now personally
I think it should be in all applications because cumulatively lots of nine applications are
nine cumulatively make lots and lots of infrastructure requirements. Now I guess you're going to
tell me that 10 is the accepted norm but I would just say all development has to contribute
whether it's education, healthcare, roads, transport, contribution of infrastructure
itself. But at least IN2 specifically says anything above 10 has to contribute and it
should then be on every one of those single policies, whether it's affordable housing
and or whatever. But in terms of the way you've written the policies, they're too generic.
SB10 is way too generic, digital infrastructure, transportation is way too generic. So my plea
would be, rewrite it so you are consistently saying if you're 10 or more, you're all basically
you're all contributing to the greater good, right?
Because they are fundamentally that much bigger.
If you could do it for all the matter, it would be great,
but I'm probably guessing you're going to say not to.
And I'll leave it at that, thank you, Jim.
So I think two points there.
The first one was around the protection of the Aylesbury link.
So there is a route protected in the plan.
Mr Steve Bambrick - 3:04:56
So on the policies map, there's a route that's shown,
and there's a policy that protects that route.
So I don't have the specific policy number but we can provide you with that.
SP10.
SP10.
SP10 is generic.
It's not specific.
When you look at the other list of the fiscal rates.
I'll get you the specific policy.
We can confirm that.
But the route is protected.
And then your second point I think was just about how we're then using those or how we're
and how we're then using the contributions that we received.
Making it very clear for every single type of infrastructure you're going to be doing,
if you're ten houses or more, then every single one of those policies it applies, because
Cllr Alex Collingwood - 3:05:43
in the other parts of the policies it just says generically, it doesn't say, because
IN2, the first part of IN2 says, application's ten or more, you are going to be required,
right? So therefore that's quite a nice specific one going, there's no ambiguity with anybody
coming forward, that's what the answer is.
Let's just let officers answer and then I'll let you ask them.
Yeah, and I don't have the detailed answer to that so maybe something we can take away
and look at as part of the recommendations to cabinet.
Mr Steve Bambrick - 3:06:08
Cllr Michael Bracken - 3:06:15
Yeah, sure. I think just you raised this issue on what some of these thresholds are for different
policies because it was an area that we worked through with the team quite a lot of detail
to determine what was right because you've got a lot of extra requirements on certain
and developments of certain scale,
and there is a judgement of sort of where you draw that line.
I think the thing you've got to be wary of
is if you set those limits too low,
you'll end up putting enormous burden
down to somebody building an extension in their garden.
So you've got to put those limits at a place
where you can actually meaningfully engage
with the person who's doing that development.
I do think that the balance of those is right,
but maybe some future work you could consider reviewing
some of those thresholds in the same way that the team has.
Sorry, Chair, just to say TR7 is the policy I was referring to.
Keshe?
Mr Steve Bambrick - 3:07:05
Thank you, Chairman. I just want to go back to what the leader said earlier about
Cllr Jackson Ng - 3:07:12
fibre housing supply. I picked up the fact that my understanding is if we could have
this plan, this draught plan and what we want to go ahead and propose to build, etc., but if the
developers decide to lend bank having had planning permission, my reading of it is we'll
still be short of housing supply, we'll still be facing speculative applications.
So what is the council going to do about that?
What can we do about it?
What can our MPs do about it?
Thank you.
Well, I'll give you the first response.
I think that risk exists with any plan, not just ours.
Cllr Steven Broadbent - 3:07:57
And clearly, you may have seen in the last week,
starts and completions of new homes have absolutely collapsed across the country,
despite the government saying they want to build 1 .5 million homes.
The lobbying I will continue to do is to say that's an issue government need to change
because otherwise the cards are all held by the developers.
You know, the developers, I mentioned them earlier and they will quite rightly, you know,
give their views on the plan.
But in a Turkey's don't vote for Christmas kind of way, they'll want to bring forward
plans at a pace that would suit them. But of course my argument is the council
shouldn't suffer if it's clear that we are taking the plan, working through with
the site allocations. A decision made by a developer is up to them. In the
early part obviously we have some, well on any part of time, those sites that are
controlled by the council, we can obviously bring forward
at the most appropriate and suitable time.
But that's a limitation in the plan,
that's not 91 ,000 homes.
So we will continue to make that lobbying.
The MPs have a direct involvement because, you know,
if there were legislation on the books, changes to that,
then they can play into it.
But we can only live within the realms of what we have now,
Which is a plan that will be evidenced and assuming the inspector accepts the plan
Developers are full -sighted on what the costs of that are where the areas are
And they should be able to bring forward their proposals to then go through the planning process on it
But it's absolutely right, which is why I mentioned earlier a risk of any plan
Is the five -year land supply relies on others is not solely in the control of the council Steve. Is there anything you want to?
just from a technical perspective,
just to partly explain the process as well.
Mr Steve Bambrick - 3:10:06
So it's part of the process of us presenting the plan
to the planning inspector.
The inspector will also be interested to hear
from the developers of the sites
that are contained within the plan,
because of course the trajectory that we're proposing
is also done through, in part,
the kind of engagement with those developers,
because they're telling us that they can deliver
on their sites to this trajectory,
and the inspector will want to test that as well.
So, you know, there's a point of, I mean, it doesn't address completely the issues,
the risks that I think we're all aware of, but the Inspector and we will want to also
test their assumptions about their deliverability of these sites.
Councillor Roberts.
Yeah, probably quite a quick question.
Cllr Mark Roberts - 3:10:57
Going back to the 6 .5 billion and the infrastructure delivery plan and picking up the points raised
by Councillor Stutchbury, I don't recall there being a line item on there for water
and sewage.
So can you just explain that?
I'm not sure whether I've misunderstood something about what's included in the figures
there.
Mr Steve Bambrick - 3:11:30
Yes, so there's a separate line that sits outside of the IDP specifically for water
provided because that's part of the work that they've been doing.
It's part of their investment plan specifically.
So they are part of the IDP preparation but their own investments effectively sit outside
of the IDP.
So their their investment is provided for but not as in the 6 .5
Cllr Mark Roberts - 3:11:54
Yeah, okay, thank you, thank you
Cllr Stuart Wilson - 3:12:03
Thank you firstly I'd like to thank
Councillor Bracken for his guidance on the health
bits because I think the hasque response whilst
There's a lot of additional inclusions across a range of policies, although perhaps not
to the level of specificity that Councillor Collingwood also asked for.
We appreciate the fact that a number of the points raised by HASC were built into a range
of policies that affect health and wellbeing and the provision of suitable housing.
So thank you for the guidance on that earlier this year.
It's appreciated.
My question really is around the quality of consultation engagement from the infrastructure
providers because I think in the opening presentation we are only as we have to take what they say
and we're only as good as the quality of their engagement.
And if I can highlight perhaps a few areas that raise concern for me.
On health, obviously close to my heart, there's extensive consultation with ICB and NHS Trust
has helped endorse new development, is supported by sufficient primary and secondary healthcare
provision.
To what extent is that governed by the NES and new allocations as opposed to the continuing?
Because clearly there is a substantial part of continuing development going on.
I note the fire service advised consultation with neighbouring fire authorities, but I
couldn't see a record of that in the consultation documents because there's a lot of over,
you know, we are a long thin county that overlaps with a lot of borders.
I can see that's happened with health, but I couldn't see that it happened with other
fire services.
Given the amount of overlap we have in the south with Berkshire, I think that's really
important and I was distraught to see the lack of engagement from rail
companies and Network Rail and yet there's I think 1 .2 billion pounds
allocated I don't know how you've got that number without them responding so
if the railway companies haven't responded how have we got to a 1 .2 which
is clearly over 20 % of our infrastructure number but I am very
disappointed and I think it should be noted for the railway either Network
rail nor the railway companies to respond is very poor because this is so
important to our residents and obviously we put a lot of store by rail
connectivity so thank you Chen
Mr Steve Bambrick - 3:14:56
So on each of those, so first of all just taking the health response, so I think your
question was yes responding in relation to kind of nest and large sites but what about
the other smaller sites and continuing sites.
So, yes it is caught up, those smaller sites are also considered as part of this overall
approach.
There is a health calculator that we've effectively adapted as part of this approach
which picks up contributions from all of the sites which includes all the non -NEST sites
and includes the existing sites as well.
So that is, and there has been very positive engagement on that from health colleagues.
The on the fire authorities piece, so yes we have consulted with neighbouring fire authorities,
it may not be evident from here but we can make that more evident but that consultation
has been done and has been included in the numbers that we've provided.
And on the rail piece, you're right we didn't have a specific response from Network Rail
but the work that we've been doing has been through our own consultants Atkins who've
been doing based on industry benchmarking numbers who have been able to give us that
number. So that's how we've arrived at those numbers that have gone into the IDP.
So again we've got some confidence that we've got some industry benchmarked figures
that have gone into that calculation. I think that it's a really good observation
Councillor Wilson. I wonder whether one action that we take is
Cllr Simon Rouse - 3:16:27
I write to the Chair of Tech pointing out that Network Rail didn't contribute to the
plan and they might want to explore that because it does seem to me to be quite significant
emission. So if the committee's content, I'll tell that as an action.
Yeah, I think that's a great idea. I think it's – I hope, you know, our Atkins report
Cllr Stuart Wilson - 3:16:43
is sufficient for the inspector because clearly 1 .2 billion is a huge chunk of our infrastructure
money that is not supported by the infrastructure providers.
Cllr Simon Rouse - 3:16:58
Okay. Final couple of questions from me on this period. How – what confidence level
do you have that the infrastructure number that you've arrived at is not under weighted,
i .e. that we're not going to find that we suddenly have a massive gap in terms of what
we think that infrastructure should be and could be.
So, I guess, what is your confidence level that we've got that right?
Because that feels to me like to be the most significant question.
Secondly, I never thought I would find a document entitled Water Cycle Study, Level 2 draught.
Fascinating.
but it was indeed fascinating.
Some terrifying stats in there about the number of waste treatment works
that have got the capacity to cope with the development, I have to say.
But the bit that struck me is that I have no doubt that the public,
who we are asking to basically give confidence they believe the plan is sound,
their key question will be,
how will the infrastructure be put in place to support this housing growth?
And it feels to me there are a lot of technical documents sitting behind all of this that
we somehow need to make sure we can lift out from those technical documents the key bits
of narrative to give the public confidence that we've really understood the infrastructure
needs and that we understand how those infrastructure needs may need to be faced.
Because again in the water cycle study I think that is one of the really important take -outs
which is the phasing that may be required to deal with it.
and it goes to Councillor Waters point as well about grandpa and conditions.
So I guess we're just going linking this back into the public consultation.
How will we be able to get take the public and residents through understanding away from
the technical detail just how that infrastructure infrastructure picture has been worked through
so they can look at the plan and say I can see that the council has understood the infrastructure
needs and has articulate those infrastructure needs to support the housing because I do
that would be the critical test the residents will put on the plan.
Thank you.
So just on your first question around the competence level, so again, we've, as I think
Mr Steve Bambrick - 3:18:59
mentioned earlier, we've spent a long time kind of working with the infrastructure providers,
Network Rail aside, although we are working with Network Rail now, so they are part of
the conversation now, they have seen the numbers that we have included.
And as a consequence of all of that work that we've been doing and also as a consequence
of the work we've been doing through the advisory visits with the planning inspectorate,
we are very confident in the kind of process that we followed and the input that we've
had into that document.
that they are all kind of best estimates that they can be based on the level of information
that we've got. So again just recognising that even at this stage we are talking about
sites on plans with numbers attached to them without going into very specific detailed
planning for each of those sites. So there are always going to be limitations to what
an IDP that's attached to a local plan can do. And of course it's serving the purpose
of making sure we can demonstrate that the local plan is sound. Is there a risk as we
start to get into site delivery that we find ourselves with, you know, more challenges
around infrastructure? Yes, I can't sit here today and say no, there's no risk at all because
the level of assessment that's been done has been proportionate to the level that we're
looking at in terms of the overall sites. But I go back to what I said earlier which
is we're in a much stronger position than we've ever been with our previous local
plans in having done that assessment and having, finding ourselves with that position. That
I think takes me to your second question which is the kind of narrative piece that sits around
that and I think that's a really fair challenge that actually as part of the wider comms that
sits around the plan as well as the technical piece that needs to go to the Inspectorate,
there's probably an action we can take away around how do we explain the narrative around
the plan and its delivery to the wider public and I think that's a fair challenge.
Can I just add a point on infrastructure because I think it's fully come out from the discussion.
Cllr Michael Bracken - 3:21:23
So what we are not talking about here is we are not saying this is the infrastructure
a delivery plan, people have agreed to it and that's the end of it. I think it's really
important that the wider public understands that each development still has to demonstrate
that it can deliver the infrastructure required. So I think what we've been outlining is that
there is a process which has done a best efforts plan to get with supporting evidence for what
we need, but that is going to be a continuous and reinforced process, development by development.
So please can the public not you know, please don't take away from this that because we've now allocated always
This is all going to happen. It cannot happen unless it complies with all those development policies
Cllr Michael Collins - 3:22:15
Yes, thank you chairman, it's not a question it's a statement for the last two and a half years
I've had ongoing battles with Thames water who have failed to engage in any of the issues that we have raised
The closure of a particular chalk stream in itself has caused a problem.
Then I've been talking for the last 18 months about putting in a new system, a new plant,
new pumping station within one of the villages.
We've tried to have discussion with them.
We've had a public meeting where we had to close the meeting because the representatives
of Thames Water were totally unable to answer any of the issues.
They sent in junior representatives to the company, they failed to recognise the problem.
So when we get companies like Thames Water making promises which are very much integral
to the local plan, it is really worrying.
They are not fit for purpose.
And that's two and a half years of experience with them.
And I just hate to think going forward what's going to happen.
What's your confidence they'll deliver what they promise?
I think it's the very well made point.
Well, the requirement upon us is to work with the infrastructure providers.
We don't have a choice.
Mr Steve Bambrick - 3:23:37
We can't pick and choose who those infrastructure providers might be.
So, I can't specifically comment on, you know, their particular performance, but they are
engaged and as we expect them to be engaged in the process.
So, in that sense, we have confidence that they've been properly engaged and they understand
what's required of them.
Thank you.
Right.
I'm going to move us on to employment and high streets.
Cllr Simon Rouse - 3:24:13
Thank you, Chairman.
Cllr Alex Collingwood - 3:24:20
Pleased to see that we've got sort of the polymer studios plus the three key enterprise
zones specifically listed out.
I'm just a bit curious about the other employment sites.
I think it's listed about 37 there.
One I'm not quite clear of in the text is what protection they've got, because certainly
else within our own piece, there's a couple of big ones in South County such as Cressex
Business Park, Globe Park itself, where we've not had the article for the protection piece,
where there's been conversions from employment to housing, which could potentially be inappropriate
because actually we want those bigger sites like that to be, particularly like Crescix
Business Park, we want that to particularly be the engine of growth, if that makes sense,
along with Pinewood Studios, to be an engine of growth.
So where is it in our local plan that says no, no, very clearly it's not just about employment,
but it's about employment and non -conversion of, because what you don't want is then have
conflicting uses within these big employment sites.
I mean if you go to the Crescix Business Park, the number of 40 -tonne architectically lorries
up there is like one every 20 seconds, right?
You don't want residential anywhere near that site at all.
So, but I didn't see the articulation there
of a bit like you talked about TR7,
where you said, okay, right, okay,
we are gonna protect this scenario.
I think we need to be more robust
in terms of our protection of our,
either four key ones, but also the other 37 there
who are existing ones that are the ones
that are gonna drive economic growth, drive the economy,
drive the whole of the county, as it were.
I don't feel it felt organic bill to generate it didn't feel specific enough going put that protection going forward
So I don't know how that's weaved into the thing going forward
I don't expect it to give me you know the chapter verse or what it'll be now
But if they see now we need to cabinet at least take that pot into account if that's okay
Thank you, so so the
Mr Steve Bambrick - 3:26:17
the policies within the plan split talk specifically about the kind of planning implications of
those particular sites. So we seek to ensure that any new developments on those sites retain
the kind of employment uses on the sites. I think you're absolutely right that what
they don't do, and it's not for the local plan to do because it would be amending a
a national regulation is kind of introduce a kind of an article for protection which
for people watching in potentially an article for protection is effectively something that
removes permitted development rights so if you've got an employment use it could without
the need for planning permission be converted to say residential use in a location like
this. So that's a separate process and it is an important process and I think given
that we're moving towards identifying these as key employment sites I think
you're absolutely right that as part of a separate process we ought to be
considering you know article for directions on some of those key sites
council Stutchfield yeah thank you for opportunity again and I am concerned
Cllr Robin Stuchbury - 3:27:35
about the employment sites and following on from the ones in south but we were
our total reliance on Silverstone and I don't rely on Westcott which to be
frankly honest had disconnected from all the easy way to get to them from many of
the proposed development areas and of course Silverstone was there very much
obviously in the news over the weekend there was a race there apparently and
lots of things happened but but I don't see how the connectivity get people to
these employment sites, one being adjacent to Northamptonshire, one being in the middle
of it of North Buckinghamshire close to Hurdby, the connexion from some of the areas, the
infrastructure, transport and whatever to get to these sites and the other point being
on the town centre. Of course we can reasonably do stuff in town centres where we own property
and we can have an influence. One of the things we have in North Buckinghamshire and many
other places in Buckinghamshire is we don't own any property or land in the High Street
so we can't actually do anything to stimulate it because we haven't got any
ownership. So how are we going to change those narratives to actually stimulate
town centre, vibrant town centres in new communities and in large communities
like Winslow which is going to be in a large community in my own community will
So I don't know how we're going to do that because I can't see how we do it.
I don't think it's the transport, the busses and such and such around that,
whether there's an underlying policy in the plan where we can extract some money from those developers to put that in.
Because the road infrastructure is basically relying on 1800's agricultural tracks
that can't engrain and corn rounds, not North Buckinghamshire, there's nothing there really
and it worries me greatly that we're falsely flagging these things that have been able to be used.
Mr Steve Bambrick - 3:29:39
Thank you. So I think it's probably just important to say as well that
obviously Westcott is what is our major growth area in the plan, but as I think you saw from
the presentation, we've got a huge amount of existing commitments across the whole of the
as well as as part of the the new settlement locations also making
provision for new employment provision as well so there's a so there's a wide
mix of employment provision already existing and proposed. Nevertheless
places like Westcott and Silverstone two of our really key employment sites
enterprise zones that house both nationally and internationally important businesses and have the
potential for huge productivity gains that will benefit the whole of the county and beyond
if we get this right. So we kind of make no apology for the fact I think that those locations
remain really important locations for us to focus our attention, notwithstanding that there are
that there are opportunities elsewhere.
Also, the plan does, specifically for Westcott,
because that's one of our major growth areas,
make it clear that as proposals come forward,
we expect those proposals to improve
the connectivity of the site,
particularly to our key towns,
so Aylesbury and the wider area.
So as part of growing those locations,
some of the challenges that I think you're describing,
we would expect to see addressed as part of this.
So, and the danger is that we say,
well, we can never grow these places
because they're not well connected.
Well, they'll always stay the way they've always,
they are, particularly Westcott.
Actually growing Westcott and improving that connectivity
just absolutely increases its potential
to be a major driver of growth and productivity
in that part of the county.
In terms of the kind of town centre businesses, so you're right, one of the opportunities
that the council has or one of the levers that the council has is where it might be
an owner of sites and it can kind of facilitate and drive some of that change forward.
But also crucially actually the local plan itself, the kind of regulatory environment
that we create can also be a lever that we can pull to stimulate changes in town centres.
Some of the policies that we've got in this plan coming forward will be that mechanism
I would say. So it's not just about what the Council can do with its land, it's what
it can do with some of the regulatory functions as well and that's also important.
I'm back briefly. One of the things I'm concerned about is we're basically totally reliant on
Cllr Robin Stuchbury - 3:32:35
MK for jobs in North Buckinghamshire in a greater spent. Most people you talk to them
they either work in Milton Keynes or they work in Oxford or go that way. We're exporting
things and we're creating employment zones. So I just feel that there wasn't enough position
within those growing communities that we are going to grow.
Employment, if you don't grow the jobs where they are, they'll get in a car and go somewhere
else for work because they have to pay bills, you see, and there probably isn't a high enough
paid job anywhere.
So that's why they travel, which is key to what the leader of the council said about
the rail link to being connected, which links with it.
So those levers, we could have a situation where we become a dormitory area for people
people who go and work elsewhere they won't spend their money in the area
which but then won't actually benefit the area that's what I worry about we
must must must make sure we actually saw that this investment brings money to
Buckinghamshire residents and we don't support somebody outside well I I agree
with the sentiments and I think I would say that's the intent behind the
strategy we've got in the plan is to do exactly that
Mr Steve Bambrick - 3:33:52
council waters
Cllr Jonathan Waters - 3:33:59
thank you one of the points which is raised earlier is is about some of these
sites in which I've got one in my ward where already though it's in the plan
doesn't doesn't exist anymore as an employment area because I think all but
one of the buildings has already just put in in the recent months to turn
through permitted development into accommodation.
But the wider point of losing some of these sites
and links to the strategy of bringing more housing into town centres
and reducing the parking requirements to do with that.
If you lose lots of jobs within the towns themselves,
actually the problem will then be,
is yes you've got a lot of people with no car facilities for parking in the centre because
they're not going to find local jobs, they are still going to be using their cars to
go elsewhere. Some of them might travel by the train but a lot are going to finish up
doing a lot of driving around. So if you lose some of those sites, probably one of the ones
which is talked about actually is Cressex. Cressex actually is one of those things that
probably is drifting off the mark of where you need to be if you're going to actually
provide the right level of industrial complex for the county to be vibrant and it can't
all be in one hub where you've got such a big catchment area as Wickham, you've got
to make sure that you are really being vibrant with a site right near the motorway and should
be competing with other towns which are further up the motorway, so in Banbury, et cetera.
So you've got to make sure you're ahead of the game, you're not losing those sites and
that infrastructure is not in one place, but that's the sort of site where it is linked
to the town, the bus services, et cetera, and that will work with regenerating and getting
housing in the centre. But if you don't have that and that disappears out of the town centres,
that other policy falls away too.
Did you want to come in first or?
Yeah, I can do.
I mean, Steve will probably give another technical response, but one of the slides that was showed
Cllr Steven Broadbent - 3:36:15
earlier showed where employment sites were being allocated.
So I don't want this conversation to sound like it's all going to Westcott and nothing
else.
That is not the case.
There are, you know, site 67 sites for growth clusters, 38 in urban extensions, allocations
that exist in employment sites, 39 hectares.
I think there's a fundamental point here, which is the local plan is very important,
but also, and I referenced it earlier, links to other policies of the council.
So for example, the regeneration plan and the economic growth plan, both of which identify
the need to access employment as a key restrictor for our businesses, as well as other challenges,
including businesses tellers, not enough people living in town centres.
So actually there's cross -fertilisation between the two where they will work together.
But please don't take the thought that this isn't,
that it's only new sites looking for new businesses.
Both the Economic Growth Plan and the Local Plan will respect the existing bedrock economy,
which is populated with things like crescics,
as well as some of our town centres.
because I
Know reference to earlier. I said we can't just put housing in a place for it to then be a series of dormitory settlements
So access to good jobs and having a vibrant economy is definitely underpinning
Some of this work and how it links to the economic growth
Thank you, apologies to council Wilson I went out of order in my list so I apologise council
That's fine.
Cllr Stuart Wilson - 3:37:58
I think I asked this question on Monday, but for the benefit of those watching is on the
basis of a brown before green principle for residential development, might you just explain
why we're retaining an over provision of employment land of about 50 hectares and that could potentially,
potentially if it's in the right place be used to de -risk the housing number.
And having observed a site for 18 years that looks like it's still going to be held for employment,
that there's been a barren wasteland, I've learned a lot more about commercial yields on
various forms of employment use and why it's not productive to use it. So what is the process
for eventually releasing land that basically commerce can't use or has decided that the circumstances can't use it anymore.
Or is it locked in until we do the next local plan?
Because I don't think any of us want to be looking at brownfield sites and barren wastelands
that neither the commercial market wants to develop because it can't get a return
but it can't then use to residential because it's got a use provision on it for this.
So thank you.
So if I answer the second question first, the expectation would be quite similar to
Mr Steve Bambrick - 3:39:36
an approach that we've been adopted for some time, which is if there's a proposal to an
an alternative use on one of the employment sites we would expect a
robust marketing exercise to have been undertaken often that is for 12 months
to look for suitable alternative employment uses on the site and even
then having done that even if they're if we're not convinced that it's
appropriate to convert we still would retain the ability to say no we want to
retain it as employment. However, having gone through a very rigorous process, we would
then be in a situation where we would consider whether or not we're at the stage where actually
this is no longer usable for employment, circumstances have changed or whatever, but there is a very
rigorous process that is in place that would allow us to either resist or allow changes
of use on those locations. In terms of your first question, so again just to reassure,
as part of our process of technical assessment we went through every single site to assess
suitability for housing and in some cases there were some that we were able to effectively
flip into the housing column. All of the sites that have remained, and there are a lot of
them that are existing committed sites as opposed to new sites are the sites that we
consider are most appropriate for employment and are only appropriate for employment going
forward. There's a considerable chunk of that which is at Westcott and it makes a lot of
sense to allocate that site at Westcott to make that site make sense in itself but that
also contributes to the overprovision in the sense that we've got one big expansion there.
So it's not that we've got lots of multiple little sites that are making up the overprovision,
we've got lots of existing commitments and we've also got a big allocation at Westcott.
So we think that gives us some flexibility and actually it also gives us the employment
in the right location as well. But we recognise there is an overprovision but we don't think
any of those sites that are left would be suitable to flip into the housing column.
I might disagree but I'll be getting site specific and I'll stay away from that. Thank you.
Councillor Collins.
Cllr Michael Collins - 3:42:18
Thank you Chairman. Um an employment site needs an employer. Some years ago I was on the planning
committee and we approved the development of the former Askey site and I'm sure Peter will
remember that. And I think it was there for 11 industrial units and some office space.
It was approved, and it was an application presented by Council as part of the investment
programme. The site was completed, is completed, and it's idle. I was speaking to the managing
agents who said that interest is virtually nonexistent at the moment. And it's all well
good talking about the employment sites, but we're not getting the employer, the employers.
And again, it goes down to national policy, which is causing the big issue. And a number
of issues there are concerning because it's my understanding that it was the Council's
investment programme that put the money in to make that site possible and to build those
units. So it raises all sorts of issues. And then we, again, we go back to the fundamental
problem. It's national policy that's prevented these, the employment progressing as we wish
and as we need it to progress. So it is a concern. So we as a Council get impacted by,
okay, in that national policy. I see that site literally on a regular basis, daily,
weekly. And it's just open. It's lovely for industrial unit there or 11 units. But nothing's
Mr Steve Bambrick - 3:43:52
happening? I think, perhaps just go back to one of the points earlier about some of our
larger employment sites. So just the nature of the economy in Buckinghamshire is that
we have one of the largest provisions of small and medium enterprises. And a lot of those
SMEs are created or are there to support or are spin -offs from some of our much bigger
kind of national and international provision. So places like Pinewood for example, the kind
of creative industries generate around them lots and lots of SMEs and lots and lots of
employment as a consequence of that. And having those smaller employment locations across
the county that are able to accommodate those employers is important and that's what this
part of this employment strategy really is, is to make sure we're protecting those sites
and we've got those sites but we need to also protect those key strategic employment areas
because they are the things that these SMEs are spinning off and that's what's driving
a large part of the books economy. So that's what the strategy is for and I appreciate
there will be there will be ins and outs in that there will always be circumstances where
employers leave or new employers come in you know some of our work that we're doing outside
of the local plan is working with our top employers working with the employers across
the county and also working with those who are we're looking to bring into the county
to invest and the more we can do that and the more sites we can have available to attract
them in the better. I assume that when the application was first
Cllr Michael Collins - 3:45:36
submitted by the council that the intention was that we had a plethora of companies wishing
to have space, had these small units, and those units, and that was approved, but those
units have been sitting idle at the moment, and there are other sites throughout the county
with a similar situation.
Whilst we're accommodating the needs going forward to make these sites available, but
if we haven't got the employers and therefore the employees, then we've got to really
issue to address and we're failing to address it, I go back to national policy which is
creating the issues.
When we've got over a million youngsters who can't find employment, there is a bigger national
problem that needs resolution, but of course it's beyond the county to do anything about
that.
I think it's a point noted and well made, Councillor Collins, and I want to build on
Cllr Simon Rouse - 3:46:26
it because I may have misunderstood – I may have missed it, sorry, in the mountain
of papers, but the evidence base on employment seems to be based, there's obviously the retail
study, et cetera, but the modern employment, I think it's called the modern employment
study, which seems to be a July 2025 document, and I think the leaders referenced it, and
we've talked about the economic growth plan that we launched last year.
I couldn't find that in the evidence base.
And so my question is, is the economic growth plan, which obviously is, shapes quite a lot,
is that going to be part of our evidence base?
And have I just missed it?
And therefore, you know, it would therefore make sense that that has helped drive some
of it.
Because when I was reading the modern employment study, it seemed, some of it seemed quite
out of date with where we've got to with our, you know, key sectors, key industries.
is obviously you know what we're doing with things like the Westcott and Silverstone clusters
etc.
Yes just clarification please on that and then I just also wanted to just say I was
struck when I saw my local ward map.
I think the idea of protecting employment spaces but particularly protecting high streets
will be very well received by residents and I think again it's important we do the consultation
we explain what it is that we're doing there and why we're doing it because they may just
look at it and fear that is a development site because they had the vicious red line
around it.
But actually I think it's a really important part of the plan just to make sure residents
understand.
Thank you.
That second point is noted.
Mr Steve Bambrick - 3:48:12
On the first point, so yes, so the economic growth plan is referenced actually in the
plan and actually there's a supporting kind of employment topic paper that kind of sits
behind which references that and I mean there's a more general point and just for absolute
clarity so any of the documents that so we've got regeneration strategies for example that
we've referred to today we've got an emerging local transport plan you know the local plan
is the kind of the spatial interpretation of all of these and again we'll just need
to make that very, very explicitly clear, but specifically on the economic growth plan.
Yes it is and we will make that very much clearer that it's part of the evidence base.
Thank you. I've been advised by Councillor Shafer to ask a question on the employment
section so if you'd like to come and ask a question.
Thank you for giving me the opportunity, Chairman.
Part of my written question has already been addressed, so I'm going to rephrase it ever
so slightly.
It's coming back to employment sites and employment sites that aren't Westcott and Silverstone.
plan, even though I do fully accept that places of strategic investment, strategic employment
sites like Westcott are important for productivity.
I'm not arguing with that.
But if I look at some of the nesses, Buckingham is obviously the one that I've looked at most
closely and we are looking at a total of 4 ,700 dwellings, 2 ,235 within the current plan,
I'm also aware of another 2 ,300 homes that are likely to be put forward later this year,
which are not in the area of the NESS.
So we're looking at possibly 6 ,000 new homes, 12 ,000 new employees.
But other areas of Buckinghamshire are similarly affected.
So we're looking at Stoke Mandeville, 1 ,650 houses in the plan.
and Haddonham, 3 ,500 in the current plan period, over 6 ,000 in total.
Princess Risborough, nearly 3 ,000 in total, taking into account already committed sites.
Now the Buckingham Ness has an employment site allocation of 1 .7 hectares in a site
of a totality of 217 hectares.
As far as I can see, and forgive me if I've read this wrongly,
Stoke Mandeville, Haddonham, Princes -Risborough
have no new employment sites whatsoever allocated.
We have an additional problem that some of these places
are not well connected by road, and so they're not
necessarily able to attract a lot of inward investment.
Buckingham is okayish connected to Milton Keynes.
It's badly connected westwards towards the A43
and therefore we all know that it has poor connectivity
to Silverstone.
Haddonham, okayish to the A43,
but the connexion to Westcott is questionable.
And I could go on and I won't
because I don't want to bore us all with it.
And I do appreciate all the difficulties, but bearing this in mind, is that really compatible
with the leader's statement that he's made twice helpfully today?
And I fully agree with it that we don't want dormitory towns.
Is it compatible with provision or paragraph 5 .76, page 88 of the document, that the local
plan seeks to align employment growth with planned housing delivery to support sustainable
communities and reduce unsustainable commuting patterns.
And I have difficulty seeing that.
I will find that difficult to explain to residents.
And I wonder whether the inspector might have questions about this part of the plan.
So, the question, on the one hand there is the technical question on the soundness of
this, on the other hand there's also a question going forward what are the opportunities to
rectify this, to think about employment in other places and I know we have existing employment
places, of course we do, but still, you know, I hear a lot about Westcott, so, and I don't
see any new allocation. So what can we do about this that is within the local plan but
also going beyond and maybe that's a question to ask about our corporate plan in due course.
Nonetheless I think this is a question that's quite relevant to our existing residents and
all the new residents we're going to have.
Steve. Thank you. So, and thank you for the question.
Mr Steve Bambrick - 3:53:35
I think, again, it's probably in part, part of the conversation we've just been having
around the kind of overall strategic approach to the plan and kind of where we are looking
to focus. So, of course, it's not just, you know, Westcott or, you know, some of our other
kind of key employment areas we've got strategic locations as well at Winslow to Western for
example contained within the plan as areas of growth for employment.
Specifically I think for Buckingham, so there is a provision as part of the NES allocation
but I think importantly I think for all of the NES allocations we are also taking into
out what might already exist in those settlements because we are not talking about a completely
standalone new town. These are kind of expanded settlements and so for Buckingham we've got
the Buckingham Industrial Park, we've got Swan Business Park and other established employment
areas as well which will contribute and be able to continue to contribute to the kind
of wider employment provision. So we shouldn't just look at that new provision in complete
isolation from what's already there.
And that's what we've tried to do as part of the development
of the plan is to take account of what's in the settlements,
add to it specifically to support those SME
and local employment opportunities,
as well as looking at the wider strategic approach as well.
That's the approach of the plan.
Yeah, I mean, I think I,
in addition to everything Steve has just said,
I just think it's worth,
and it slightly relates to Mike Collins' comments as well.
Cllr Steven Broadbent - 3:55:17
It's worth saying that everything we are doing
as the council is aimed at driving
the chance to thrive for people.
So we're working with skills providers.
In fact, only last week,
with a group of international investors up at Silverstone
to drive forward investment.
These are good jobs that might require some connexion,
but to have both Westcott and Silverstone
within very close proximity to Buckingham is really helpful, I believe, because of the
opportunities for employment there. Take Formula One Cadillac, who in the last two years set
up there and chose Silverstone as their home. They've gone from, I think, a start of six
or eight people to almost 1000 employees. Some of those will be living in the area.
So actually, we can't be dismissive of the importance of those economic centres because
they're already delivering, knowing that we have other business parks there and some town
centre work will, and improved businesses and improved economy will come as a result
of having some higher footfall as well in the areas.
So I do take the point, but the reason we're brooding very hard behind our employers and
behind our economy is to make the economy work so that we actually reduce outflow travel
from the county where possible to bring jobs and homes closer together. I
understand you know the concern over this many hectares on this one but as
Steve has outlined there's some provision in there based on things that
are already there. My hope is and again as employers said we need people close
to work, we need some some more housing, we we want to come and invest in the
areas that we've got two of those that are up in the north of the county.
there's an opportunity here for us to grow the economy and give more opportunities to
people.
But clearly that will – it's a 20 -year programme again.
That will take time to bring on stream.
But given the headway we're making on the economy, my hope is there's more employers
here so that when people do move in housing allocation terms, they've got more jobs
to go to.
Thank you.
And thank you, Councillor Shafer.
We'll move on to affordable and social housing.
Cllr Simon Rouse - 3:57:42
Thank you.
The local housing needs assessment shows that we require over 33 ,000 affordable homes, about
Cllr Frances Kneller - 3:58:00
1 ,600 a year over the plan period.
but the Regulation 19 paperwork is showing that we are looking to only deliver about
14 ,800. So it's less than half that we need is being planned for and obviously if we have
problems with viability appraisals that's going to drop even further.
We currently have increasing applications to join the housing register. We've got rising
numbers in temporary accommodation and lengthening waits for families for
affordable homes. None of this will be improved if we continue at that number
and that will impact on the health and well -being of families in difficult
housing circumstances and cost the council taxpayers more each year. What
contingencies are being considered to manage the risks of this significant
built -in reduction in affordable homes given that this committee has previously
considered ways to guarantee delivery without success. And if I have a supplementary question
to that, we have 33 Bucks Council sites that are being brought forward, predominantly in
town centres, and I would like to ask whether to achieve the anticipated affordable homes
in Bucks, Buckinghamshire, will the majority of these properties be earmarked for 100 %
affordable homes through registered providers or at least the minimum 40 % on brownfield
sites going to private developers and the land value set so that no viability assessment
will fail to deliver the requisite percentage of affordable homes in those sites.
We may have a reduced capital receipt coming to the council but that should be offset longer
term by the reduction in the use of temporary housing and the negative impacts on the health
and wellbeing of families, particularly the children who are impacted in temporary housing
would be minimised.
Steve.
Thank you and thank you for the question. So just in terms of the overall provision,
Mr Steve Bambrick - 4:00:12
So you're right that the housing needs assessment is looking specifically at the allocated sites
in the plan and is making an assessment about what those bringing forth those allocated
sites will achieve.
Now of course on top of that there will be, and you'll have seen from the numbers that
we've included, there will also be a considerable number of windfall sites that therefore don't
currently form part of the overall assessment of level of affordable housing provision.
So the level of affordable housing provision, if we are to deliver to the kind of policy
requirement will be higher than the number that you described, albeit will still be under
the overall level of need.
I think I completely accept that point.
Nevertheless, this kind of gets to the heart, I guess, of some of the difficult choices
that present themselves.
So as I mentioned in the presentation, we've conducted a kind of viability assessment and
members will know that we do that at a plan level, we end up in some of these conversations
as well at site specific levels as well in terms of the overall viability of sites.
We are confident given the viability assessments we've done that the level of provision that
can sustain through the local plan is as we set out in the policies.
To go beyond that, and there's a choice potentially here to say actually well, given the level
of housing need, we will go beyond that and accept therefore that we are effectively asking
sites to come forward that are not viable, meaning we'd have to make other choices about
what else not to have.
Mr Steve Bambrick - 4:02:02
So is that a contribution to health care?
Is that a contribution to road improvements?
The other elements of essential infrastructure,
something, somewhere, needs to give effectively.
And so there's a choice to be made.
The plan that we've presented is a plan that is viable.
And we recognise that what that does is it creates a gap.
And what the plan does not do, and because I
I think it's appropriate for the plan to do is set a specific policy requirement for sites
that come forward as council sites. Now there's a separate process if you like for the council
as and when it decides to dispose of its sites once they're allocated the plan as to how
we choose to allocate those and again there'll be potential viability issues and potential
priority issues that we'll need to consider there particularly around towns into regen
and making sure that we get the right balance but those are decisions for a
separate process not for not for the local plan thank you
Cllr Robin Stuchbury - 4:03:14
yeah thank you again for opportunity I'm deeply concerned with the 20 % 20 %
affordability in the largest area of development which is going to produce
than most houses. Are we building poverty in or are we building disadvantage in?
Because you know I was back to all of us around here, myself included, don't live
in social housing although I was born in social housing. I really fear that we may
be building problems that economically who's going to be there to do the jobs
that we need people to do in affordable accommodation to look after the growing ageing population.
They're not going to be here. They're going to be moving out of Buckinghamshire to Milton
Keynes or to Northamptonshire away. So I think this limited affordability, we won't have
all those other things. Well, all those other things are supported by employees who do those
other things, who have to need to afford to live in the area that they live. And I'm worried
that we're going to manufacture a situation that won't work.
The other point of it is, are we in line with our own agreed 2024 policy to deliver a minimal
of four, it was a very low target of 500 social houses per Adam.
Well we're going to have to step that up because if the growth of the, we're expecting,
is double that or more than that the population with a 20 % in the largest
area of growth we're not going to hit those targets and lastly but most
importantly I do believe the government had changed some policies around
provision to support social housing or were in the process of doing it and we
said we need money for him we need money to meet the gap in the billion a pound
gap which was referred to or theoretical or factual still to be decided maybe
larger that element of social housing funding which could come from government
because of the decisions the council's taken not to be a provider maybe we
can't access that and maybe that's something we have to look at to
reconsider because the only way we can grow the 20 %
Councillor Stutchbury, sorry to interrupt, could you just be a bit more succinct and
bring the question to a close because you've been going for four minutes now.
No, no, no, I was enjoying those four minutes.
But I'm saying the only way that we could get to that answer is perhaps we need to be
a provider because all those things I've said are really from questions and they were four
questions in there which I can go back over the next four minutes and tell you.
but I don't think we need to.
Sir, we'll move to the answer now, thank you.
Mr Steve Bambrick - 4:06:10
So first of all I think just to point about the level of provision specifically in the
north.
I think again it's worth pointing out, as I said in the presentation, we're informed
by and we're led by the evidence.
The evidence here from the viability perspective shows us what's viable in the north and in
the south of the county.
and that's driven by land values, by infrastructure costs, I think it's
important to say that the policy that currently exists in the north is 25%.
So whilst we consulted on increasing that to 40 % as part of the
Regulation 18, the evidence has taken us back to the place where I think we ended
up in the previous plan, which is it's only viable at 25%. And actually the
performance as I think I said on the slide in the north as being close to the 25 % I think
we got to 23 % so in that sense it's I think the viability assessment is kind of taking
us down the right track. I appreciate that it gives us a differential target but again
we're being led by the evidence. In terms of the wider social housing delivery I mean
local plan specifically is looking at here we're looking at what the kind of
policy provision is I recognise there's a separate conversation the separate
piece about how are we delivering and what does the council do about delivering
but that's probably not for today chair. Steve just briefly to come back what we
are in danger doing is I'm not a landlord but other people are in the council is
the private sector landlord thing, even though that's a challenging market now because cheaper
houses can be bought by other people, not the people who live here.
Yeah, I think this is an opportunity maybe to draw out some of the management policy
bits as well because in there we've put, I believe, 60 % social rented. So even though,
You know, we were wanting to be ambitious on affordable housing, but as the reason Steve's
just outlined, there is no change to the Old Aylesbury Vale area, it's still 25%.
There is a change in that management policy that means that affordable will mean far more
frequently genuinely affordable within that 25%, not 20%, within that minimum 25 % provision
But I think as Steve Bambrick outlined, it's a bit of the circular argument of without
Cllr Steven Broadbent - 4:08:54
any money for other infrastructure, there is less money on the affordable housing piece.
If more money were forthcoming on the other bits of infrastructure, it says minimum on
purpose, then perhaps there could be more affordable housing.
But this is about a sound plan that shows the viability work as opposed to us going
to an inspector saying, we'd like it to be 40 like we consulted on, but we don't think
we're going to make it, then clearly that wouldn't pass the soundness test.
Thank you. I am conscious that – I've got four members down to speak, including yourself
Councillor
– I'm conscious that we've been going for an hour and a half and a number of us
haven't had lunch and I want to give both Sally and the officers a bit of a break as
Cllr Simon Rouse - 4:09:32
well. So my aim is to try and conclude this meeting at 3 .30. So what I'm going to suggest
we do is take a half an hour break now for lunch for those that haven't had lunch,
just because I think it'll take time for the cafe to process the lunch orders and
So it's closed now. I thought it was three
Okay, well we've got Craig's
Other food establishments available, but if we can get back sooner and that would be appreciated because I'm conscious
We have still got some things go through
Although I think the later section section should be a bit faster
But and I'm gonna ask members to make sure you are succinct from now on because some of the contributions are getting a bit long
So if we can aim to be back no later, let's say quarter to three, that would be appreciated.
Thank you.
Everybody for returning so promptly.

7 The Local Plan for Buckinghamshire

Cllr Simon Rouse - 4:10:23
If I can ask members in this next phase if we can keep our contributions really focused
and succinct so I can make sure we conclude by 3 .30, that would be appreciated.
I have got Councillor Wilson.
Cllr Stuart Wilson - 4:10:42
Sorry Chairman, I was just enjoying my mini cheddars.
I wanted to ask a question around the nature of the affordable housing.
I was pleased to read in the local plan document, it's paragraph 7 .1 .9, the discount of market
sales is not an affordable tenure within Buckinghamshire.
Sorry, it could still be the mini cheddars.
In paragraph 7 .1 .9, the local plan, it says discounted market sales is not an affordable
tenure within the Buckinghamshire area.
That's from the local housing needs assessment.
Does that, what I wasn't clear on, because that is something that an applicant can put
forward as a route for affordable housing.
But has that therefore, should I read this local plan
document to say that would not be supported,
are we able to say that's not supported?
And because I think it's right, it's
a bit like the affordable housing definition at 80 %
is not doing that. The other reason I raise it is there are organisational and
financial consequences to the council of discounted market sales because
somebody has to monitor that over a period of time. So how should I read the
local plan policy that this relates to with regard to discounted market sales
because I think it's increasingly being proposed by applicants
to circumvent the obligations of affordable housing,
not circumvent them, but get them into a more manageable state.
And so really it's a matter of trying to understand
where the policy is heading on that,
both in terms of delivery,
but also consequences to the authority on an ongoing basis and how that's been considered
if we are still obliged to take discounted market sales properties on board.
So thank you. So, yes, so again just to reiterate what sits behind the local plan policy is
Mr Steve Bambrick - 4:13:19
our kind of local housing needs assessment which gives us the kind of assessment of the
levels of affordability and so you're quite right.
What that tells us is that discounted market is not a category that we consider to meet
the affordability test and as a consequence we would not be seeking it as part of our
kind of affordable housing provision.
That's not to say that somebody might not try and propose it and or it's not to say
that we might in certain circumstances because of other circumstances accept it.
So where it comes forward, even if it's on an exceptional basis, we would then still
be in the position of having to monitor the use of it.
We also have existing sites that exist across the county where we are also monitoring the
use of those as well.
So they're not going to disappear.
But in terms of new provision, we would be seeking provision that meets the affordability
test and that isn't one of them.
And on that basis, do we seek additional funding that allows the Council financially to ensure
Cllr Stuart Wilson - 4:14:32
that it can cover the cost of administration of discounted market sales?
Because as you say, on new sites, but clearly there are some sites that are already baked
into the numbers.
So how will the carryover sites or is it all sites that are in the local plan?
As opposed to Ness and other allocations, you know the
Composition of the 91 ,000 is made up of many things
So I just want to get clarification and I don't want the council if it has to be take down this route out of pocket
financially. Yeah so the policy would apply to all sites that are bringing
forward provision not just you know allocated nest sites or others. We'll
Mr Steve Bambrick - 4:15:23
have to look we certainly do negotiate on 106 agreements monitoring fees etc
for the actual agreement itself. I'll have to cheque on the detail of what we
do historically or what we've done historically and how we might carry that
forward I don't have an answer to that today can we have that as an action
chairman thank you thank you Councillor Moore
Cllr Simon Rouse - 4:15:51
thank you chairman I'm just putting this very concisely just about affordability
and young people especially in the south of the county you have younger people
Cllr David Moore - 4:15:58
who still living with their parents there is perhaps some limitations
regarding housing mix starter homes things like that and whilst this local
plan is in front of us, there's some really welcome bits about affordability.
What is the local planning going to do to tackle the youth provision succinctly?
Thank you.
So the local plan is going to be a spatial policy that sets out the overall level of
provision.
Mr Steve Bambrick - 4:16:32
what the local plan is not doing is making decisions about how we might prioritise different
groups into the provision that might become available.
Now of course we operate, so we have a housing service, we have an allocations policy that
sits within that and that's very recently been updated actually so that prioritises
is certain groups including care leavers for example or you know others that might have
a strong connexion to the county. So there are mechanisms through our kind of housing
provision where we would look to prioritise allocation of affordable homes to certain
groups but it's not something that's addressed through the local plan.
Councillor Collingwood. Thank you Jim. One of the things that's
struck me was that I couldn't spot or I got the impression based on the presentation and
Cllr Alex Collingwood - 4:17:33
the rest of it, the healer itself isn't, hasn't been published yet today, but I assume we'll
be ready for the cabinet meeting next week. So I just wanted to understand when that's
going to be publicly available, just so that if the committee spot anything that we've
got a query with or question or whatever that we can then just feed into the cabinet meeting
next week because I think that way we can just you know things that some of the things
have been raised today we can actually then go oh by the way just clarification on or
what does that mean and that particular site is specific because I think there's like
200 sites or whatever I come around and it is but there's quite a lot of them and it
would be helpful just to know how that info feeds through in the timetable and process
if that makes sense.
Yeah so just to pick up on that point the whole of the HeLa site isn't in the published
There is the strategy there and the narrative around it, but site by site, and there's sort
Richard Ambrose - 4:18:24
of a couple of hundred of those, wasn't published because it's still being worked on.
Most of that's done, but it needs to be checked and reviewed because if we made something
published, you know, and then things were wrong.
But it will be ready for the Cabinet report and obviously happy to have comments from
this committee.
Yes, so what we'll do is if members, once we've got the healer, have any comments, we
will collate those and submit those through.
Sorry.
I assume we'll just all read back through yourself, Chairman, and then he's got one
version of everything, yeah.
Councillor Roberts.
Good.
That's the kind of committee member I like, Councillor Roberts.
Thank you.
Right.
I like all of you, of course, but he's now my favourite.
Right.
Cllr Simon Rouse - 4:19:05
Moving on to data centres.
I will kick off then.
What wasn't altogether clear to me from the presentation you did is what our assumptions
are about the maximum number of data centres we think we can take.
So I'm personally supportive of an approach, the approach that you've taken, which is to
take them on a criteria -based approach, and obviously then on a case -by -case basis.
But I think one of the concerns that residents will naturally have is that there is increasingly
a risk of a cluster of data centres building.
And we all know the kind of consequences it has on water, et cetera, et cetera.
And I understand what I discovered, the technical reason why our sort of slough area and the
link to the M4 is such an important site.
And I suppose the risk, particularly because it falls under nationally significant infrastructure,
is that we effectively can't stop the growth in the data centres.
Could you just talk through how will the plan help us protect Buckinghamshire from literally
becoming a data centre city?
Yes, so as I mentioned I think in the presentation, there isn't a – there is not a specific
Mr Steve Bambrick - 4:20:28
need in Buckinghamshire per se for data centres.
Because we know that there is a national requirement and we also know that we are part of an area
of the country where that requirement or where there's a particular demand for that requirement
to be met.
As part of the call for sites process, there were eight sites that were submitted as part
of the process that we were asked to consider.
But as I said in the presentation, because there's no specific need in Buckinghamshire,
we were faced with the choice of allocate all eight or allocate zero.
I think the protection we have is that in all of those cases, I think actually in all
of those cases they were in greenbelt locations.
And so in greenbelt locations, particularly given where we've got to with the local plan,
and particularly given we're not allocating any of the sites, they would still need to
demonstrate exceptional circumstances in order for them to come forward.
And so it's still a very high bar, so whilst of course given the location and given the
demand in that specific location, it's perhaps inevitable that we're going to have to deal
with some of those proposals coming forward.
There will need to be exceptional circumstances and we will also take into account any cumulative
effect on the green belt as well if we end up with a kind of cluster of proposals one
after the other. So I can't give you a guarantee other than to say there is some protection
still there.
That's incredibly helpful.
Yeah, can I just slightly add just to, I mean, Steve's right, on the sites that came forward,
as I said earlier, it isn't here's something in reserve. If they're all in, they can all
Cllr Steven Broadbent - 4:22:21
come forward. So it's not like you say, well, we've got two or three now, can we stop at
that it wouldn't work like that.
The criteria is there to make sure that the bar is higher,
to use Steve's phrase, and that there's some,
so we have some protection, and some of that,
just to pick up your point about power and water,
some of that criteria is linked to reassurances,
anyone bringing the site forward,
need to give about either provision they've secured
or a likelihood of provision that will be secured,
rather than being purely speculative.
and therefore rather than having a proliferation that could all come forward at once by putting
it in the plan, this allows us to be much more clear -sighted on that over that plan
period.
But those technical points are true.
It is highly likely we will receive probably multiple applications and you referenced Secretary
of State.
It is possible Secretary of State may, because of their classification as nationally significant,
may find in favour of some of those applications should they seek to have this designated as
a data centre.
So I just want residents to be aware that there are routes available, but similarly
We've used the criteria to try and ensure there's as much protection and certainty about a site and Steve's point about you know
The accumulative the accumulative effect to help to help protect things
But just because they're not in the plan doesn't mean those sites won't come forward
Castle Roberts
Apologies counselling then
I'm feeling very hurt.
Cllr Jackson Ng - 4:24:22
So my understanding is the employment strategy that we have is very sort of labour supply
driven aligning jobs of housing, et cetera, et cetera.
But data centres by nature generate very few permanent jobs for the county and the power
to consume.
So do they – have they been counted into our employment need and have we considered
how it might distort the jobs home balance
if a lot of them came into this area.
Then also the follow up question is,
if there was a large data centre that said
actually we wanted a strategic employment site,
what safeguards do we have to displace,
to prevent it from displacing the higher jobs density needs
those sites were initially sort of ring fenced for
or designated for, thank you.
Follow my chain of thought, thank you.
Yeah, thank you. So in terms of the overall level of need, I think as you rightly point
Mr Steve Bambrick - 4:25:23
out, they are not very intensive in terms of the overall level of employment that they
provide in terms of data centres and as a consequence, they kind of sit outside, if
you like, of our overall employment needs assessment and that's principally because
I go back to the point, there isn't a specific need in Buckinghamshire for data centres,
so there's not a driven need that Buckinghamshire must have data centres. There is, however,
a national need and Buckinghamshire happens to sit in a location where that national need
can be met and there's a demand for that. So if they were to come forward, they would
be to satisfy a national need rather than a specific local employment need over a variety
of factors. And I think, again, in terms of the protection that we've got, particularly
on our key employment side, so again, going back to the conversation we had earlier, the
policy provisions in the plan are designed to make sure that we are protecting our employment
uses for those high level employment uses and so that's the principle behind the plan.
So we'd be looking to resist, I guess, any kind of specific scheme that kind of compromised
the provisions of the plan which was seeking to otherwise protect the
employment uses on the site.
Pardon my question, what happens if they chose one of the sites that would ring
fenced, how does that, how do we prevent that from happening? Well and again if
Cllr Jackson Ng - 4:26:54
there's an application that is contrary to what the policy is seeking to protect
Mr Steve Bambrick - 4:26:57
then that would give us the grounds to not approve on those on those grounds.
Can I have a follow -up question chairman? So my question would be then could data
centres also then be, especially with the national government sort of scheme, Secretary
of State stepping in, be a route to green belt or grey belt release for the wider national
economy.
How does our policy safeguard against that?
So if any of the schemes, and it's not just about data centres, if there's any nationally
significant infrastructure project that is being determined nationally, if that happens
across our County then we are not the decision -maker first and foremost but we
have a very key role in that process as a consortee in the process and obviously
our assessment of schemes would be on the basis of what our local plan says so
our input into those projects would be to say to the decision -maker whether
it be the planning inspector or whether it be the Secretary of State this is
what this means for our local plan.
Ultimately the decision on those N SIP proposals doesn't rest with the council.
But the council will be entitled to judicial review it if necessary if it's contrary to
our plan.
We're always entitled to operate a judicial review process if we believe there to be legal
flaws in the process, not just if it's contrary to the plan.
Thank you.
Councillor Collins.
Thank you, Chairman.
I was listening to a little news clip last night about Microsoft's plans as far as data
centre was concerned, and there was something I misheard.
But it said that if we were to meet the demands for data centres, then in fact we will be
Cllr Michael Collins - 4:28:48
consuming between 7 and 8 percent of the total electricity needs for the country, which seems
quite alarming. And they pointed out that the big need to call these centres, they were
talking about the infrastructure that's required just to keep these centres operating.
Now, a simple cost -benefit analysis, it's my understanding because of the one that we
just had outside Princess Whisper. There's very few people employed for such a large
outlay in a large area that's being used.
But I'm assuming the tech boys tell us that it's worth that investment, but does 7 or
8 percent of our total electricity needs will be met within the requirements of a data centre?
Seems extraordinary to me.
I mean, that's correct.
I mean, I don't know whether those numbers are correct.
I've got no reason to doubt them other than to say, you know, these uses are very, very
Mr Steve Bambrick - 4:29:52
hungry when it comes to both power and water.
I think as the leader mentioned earlier, the policy that we've got in the Reg 19 plan
sets out the criteria that we're assessing and part of that assessment is have they got
suitable arrangements in place for both power and water connexions because of course we
wouldn't want to see anything approved if ultimately it's just that it sits there
and doesn't happen because they can't service the energy or other infrastructure requirements.
So just sorry just on that note then so if they're not in our plan from the water cycle
report that was done how does that factor in is is any demand from data centres over and above
Cllr Simon Rouse - 4:30:33
for that water cycle report as I like it will be yes so there will be if there's a data centre
proposal they'll need to demonstrate outside of that what their requirements are.
Cllr Robin Stuchbury - 4:30:56
And oiling
if say an adjacent area of development has a data centre,
that will be a drain on our ability to deliver our plan
because the water that they need will be to go there,
the energy that it needs will go there
and we will have to generate the energy there.
So being so books focused on it is probably not the way around.
I think we need to establish what is the intentions of them
and are they really needed, are they not needed,
because we don't want to stop the economy functioning,
but I think the environmental impact of these things,
as I stated earlier, in North Buckinghamshire is no water,
much, and I'm sure it's pretty much the same
in the Thames area, so I do think that it's the bit,
if they happen like in Oxfordshire, right next door to us,
they happen in Hertfordshire and Northamptonshire,
We will still be impacted by them and it will take resources away from us delivering our plans
I think it's not just a bucket of sheer question, but we need to have where we've got policies robust enough
To be able to say well that will stop us delivering this because you've taken that
What we need to deliver this rather the same way as I alluded to the so council such
I think we've got the question which is wider wider at wider impacts. Yeah
so so
Yes, and we are consulted on neighbouring applications. We will also, if there's an
Mr Steve Bambrick - 4:32:42
NSIP in a neighbouring authority, we'd also be a consortee in that process and we would
feed that into the process as well. So we would take all of those things into account,
including the impact on delivering our own strategy.
And it doesn't, if I can, it doesn't just apply to data centres and provisions. So the
Cllr Steven Broadbent - 4:33:05
So increasingly he's having to respond to development consent orders and nationally
significant infrastructure projects.
We heard earlier from Parrish where we're just having a train depot dumped upon us with
no consultation.
The Universal Studios that was referenced earlier in Bedford is another example.
The transfer of water from Midlands, the Midlands to service the needs of Luton with water with
a potential for a water streaming plant in North Buckinghamshire.
These things do come out of nowhere.
We are positioned in a country, in the part of the country, and often it's to our benefit
as a bit of a strategic connector.
That certainly helps our economy, helps us if you think about going from the end of Heathrow's
runway just about up to Silverstone.
but it is increasingly the council is having to respond to those points of
nationally what is deemed as nationally significant parts because they're having
an impact on Buckinghamshire immediately. And one of the things I've talked about
before is land use. We have Rosefield Solar Farm, we have the mega prison, we
We have, you know, decrees, even when we've tried to protect the Greenbelt,
Monmollo Film Studios has got motorway service areas.
The amount of stuff coming into Buckinghamshire makes the plan all the more complex.
But, again, for people watching, we respond always with a response that says the implications
of this on Buckinghamshire and its people.
So it's wonderful that they're taking water down to help the expansion in Luton, but you would say in the north will hang on
Yeah, you know there's an issue now
So the officer team will have to deal with the local plan
But still alongside that that is not divorced from the work that happens on nationally significant projects
So again, I think we're in that area of what this local plan is and isn't but that doesn't mean we're silent on all the other
Things that's happening around it as a council. Thank you. Right. I'm gonna move us on to
town centre density in car parking council Roberts
Yes
subject close to my heart this one so
obviously the plan objectives include
Cllr Mark Roberts - 4:35:26
supporting the vitality of town centres high streets really important issue and something that's of
great concern to most of our residents
and
I think the the key thing here is around the public car parking is a significant part of that
today
And what we're seeing in the plan is the allocation of car parking to brownfield development for
densification in town centres
Personally I totally buy into the benefit of town centre
developments, brownfield developments delivering affordable sustainable housing and the footfall
that creates for high streets.
It's one of the reasons why I was behind my disappointment about the King George 5th
House development at ward level.
So my understanding in the plan though, looking at it, is we are looking at a significant
reduction in the number of public car parking spaces over the plan period if
I've understood that correctly. So my concern really is about how that
reduction in public car parking in those spaces how that can be reconciled with
the housing provision and how that can be reconciled with supporting the
vitality of the high streets. Now looked in the evidence we've got the parking
standards and new parking standards for new dwellings.
That's obviously around how much parking is related to the dwellings, but I don't
think it talks to the public car park provision as in my understanding.
So what I'm looking for is the evidence of like what's our estate today for public
car parking, what would it be at the end of the plan period and what are we doing in terms
of policy development and provision to help make that a reality that meets the
needs for public car parking but without impacting the high street. I know I had a
look there's obviously mountains of evidence there but I haven't seen the
sort of evidential base to support that case and how we'll support things like
the modal shift that would be required changing behaviours around public and
investment in public transport, active travel, etc. So I'm not feeling, I'm not
finding the evidence to support that case and that's really what I understand
if you could respond to that. Yes, so quite a few points in that bit so I'll
take them in order but I think probably the first thing to say is the strategy
Richard Ambrose - 4:38:22
is brownfield over greenfield over greenbelt as we as we know so that's
that has been our strategy and try to maximise housing therefore in some of those key town
centres. That means density, increased density and that means reduced parking as a result
of that as well. So that's some of the principle around it. However we completely recognise
some of the points that you're making around parking provision and making sure we've got
adequate parking provision. So before anything is done around any developments as they come
forward there will be a parking assessment undertaken that will review
the parking wherever you're talking about so I'm making this up but let's
say it was in Chesham it would review the overall parking in Chesham and make
sure that there was adequate parking for what was needed including the
development before anything was decided so that's that's one point and then
there'll also be in any of this an exceptions policy around those parking
standards. So those sort of needs and the adequacy and the suitability and the
options around it in the strategy will all be considered as part of it. So there
are some exceptions is what I guess is what I'm trying to say to that to make
sure that we don't jump to conclusions and put things in place that we perhaps
will regret later. But again going back to that brownfield strategy they are
around town centres and train station areas and generally there is better
connectivity so again that's some of the rationale for reducing the parking.
Chairman can I just add to that as well because I think there's a couple of other points just to
Mr Steve Bambrick - 4:40:00
bear in mind so as part of redevelopment of sites it is also possible and perhaps
we should go as far as they expected that parking provision can be
re -provided as part of a redevelopment of the site so please don't assume just
because we're allocating a site and it's been redeveloped,
that there's no additional park
or no next parking provision that's been re -provided.
We're also would be expecting as part of any sites
that come forward, them to be making contributions
to things like improvements in public transport, et cetera.
So that's where the strategy starts to link up, I think,
and where we start to get into making sure
we're bringing forward the sites,
we do the proper assessment at the time
to make sure we've got the adequate parking
and we bring forward new provision and or alternatives to join those things together.
That's what the plan sets out.
Yeah, just to add to that, obviously an example close to home is the Sycamore Road car park
Cllr Mark Roberts - 4:40:57
in Amersham. In the site allocations it's currently 265 spaces in there and it's regularly
full on a weekly basis. The site allocation indicates only 132 parking spaces to be retained
on that side. So the obvious question then is well where would the alternative provision
be, how's that going to be addressed without impacting neighbouring areas and so on. So
and that's the evidence that I haven't been able to find so far and I don't think
that's an isolated case because I think there are other car parks without focusing
on those single case. There's Staryard in Cheshire, Exchange Street in Aylesbury, there
be other examples as well that I haven't, I'm not more familiar with.
And again, just I mean I think, so a strategy such as the strategy we've got is not a straightforward
Mr Steve Bambrick - 4:41:52
strategy to deliver because obviously you know this is not, we're not allocating greenfield
sites which are just dead easy to do. We're talking about a brownfield town centre focus
which we know is going to involve some choices and compromises.
But the kind of policy provisions that we've built into the plan
ensure that we don't just say, here's a site, build on it
and we'll worry about the consequences later.
We've got all of the kind of mitigations in the policy
to make sure that before we're making final decisions
we're considering all of those points.
But what we can't say today is I can't give you all of those answers
for all of those sites because we've got to work through all of that as they come forward.
Councillor Nella. Thank you. Having heard Chesham mention a
town dear to my heart, I think that the issue here, particularly where we've got the car
Cllr Frances Kneller - 4:42:46
parks being identified as potential development sites, which are primarily commercial parking
for the town centre and quite difficult to marry residential, which I support, you know,
high density on brownfield sites. I think perhaps where we've just got level car parks,
we are going to now have to start thinking in advance of some of these sites being developed
that we will need to identify a location for a multi -storey car park because a parking
assessment I think would show that the number of people who do travel into Chesham simply
because it's very easy to walk into Chesham down the hill with empty bags
but very hard to walk up the hill with full bags of shopping so that's why
people travel as they do and we don't really have a lot of public transport to
help with the surrounding area but I think it's just thinking right we might
start thinking about where our multi -storey car park could go. And again
I mean that's that's one potential alternative and as I said earlier yeah
Mr Steve Bambrick - 4:43:55
we'll need to think a little bit differently in terms of how we make the provision given
our strategy here is to try and maximise as far as possible our kind of town centre brownfield
provision. So yes, I mean it's an option.
It does strike me as well on this, this is where joining up with the bus route and the
infrastructure investment required to drive up, obviously we've had some challenges with
that reducing from central government, it just feels to me a bit of a join up, a bit
Cllr Simon Rouse - 4:44:20
on the dot as well to answer that particular challenge.
Great thank you.
I'm going to move us on then to the final section which is gypsy and traveller sites
and I'll kick off this one actually.
So I understand and support the approach that you've outlined which relates to the windfall
assessment that will be, that will enable us to get to the provision or the needs that
were assessed.
But could you just talk us through why you are confident that going into the plan, the
Regulation 19, with that shortfall isn't going to create an issue when we take it to
the planning inspector?
So fundamentally, because of the steps we've taken to kind of reach the point we've reached,
Mr Steve Bambrick - 4:45:07
so similar to our assessment for housing and for employment, we've been through a very
rigorous process in trying to identify potential sites.
The difference between housing and employment and the gypsum traveller allocations is that
we've not been able to identify sufficient sites in order to satisfy the level of need.
We have, as you say, introduced a kind of a degree of appropriate windfall within that.
But the reason we are confident and the reason why we can give some advice to say that we
believe that to be sound is because we have taken all the necessary steps in terms of
assessing, doing the call for sites, assessing those sites and looking at how we can in some
cases intensifying existing sites. So you know if an inspector were to say to us
you need to find some more sites I think our answer to that in large part would
be we've kind of been through that process and there aren't any of those so
it's a difficult one for us to be able to address if we can't find any of
the sites and of course we've also asked that questions part of the duty to
cooperate and nobody can accommodate them either.
Yeah, travellers, gipsies, travelling showmen, you know, they're very different people, very different.
Cllr Robin Stuchbury - 4:46:34
I have an understanding of showmen, I meet them and work with them.
But the thing with travelling people is that the queue's in the name, isn't it?
You're travelling, you move around the country, but we have a Pacific thing that we've never managed in Buckinghamshire.
One of the things that I do want to understand is this is one of the things
that cooperating with our neighbours is a good thing because you know right on the
boundary of North Buckinghamshire there's a site in Milton Keynes you know and we'll
probably know there's a site several sites around North Buckinghamshire and
they'll be the same around South Buckinghamshire because we don't ever provide
enough and then we have the problems which is caused through no provision
where people take actions and stop somewhere and we have and they get moved
on also one of the sites you put in North Buckinghamshire was opened on a
bank holiday weekend I think when they arrived and managed to get a road in and
a track in and electric in every within free even a few hours only they could
built HS2. But so these sites happen they'll come anyway if we haven't made
a vision and then we have all that cost of going through a retrospective
planning so are you really really really sure that these figures that you're
putting in are robust enough not to have a situation where in a few months time
we have after the plans agreed or before it's agreed we have retrospective
effective planning applications for sites which have been curated.
So can I just go on the point about the needs because I think this is also an important
Mr Steve Bambrick - 4:48:25
clarification to make. So the needs assessment for not just Buckinghamshire but across the
country changed as a consequence of a kind of change of kind of national position again
as a consequence of court decisions, which is to the degree to which you take into account
the needs of the travelling community and those members of the community who are no
longer travelling, so who are settled, and so the needs assessment has increased because
we are all now required to include within our assessment not just those members of the
who continue to travel but also those members of the community who are settled. So based
on the previous assessment, so the assessment that was done before that change in the national
position, the provision we're making in this plan meets the needs of the previous assessment.
But again I go back to the point I made in response to the previous question, we've taken
all the necessary steps we can. I mean I can't give you a guarantee what might happen in
relation to speculative applications either for housing, employment or gipsies and travellers.
All I can say is we've taken all the necessary steps and we're confident that we can present
the same plan to the Inspector.
Did I read in it Steve that you mentioned education and other facilities to do with
traveller sites which are always very difficult to deliver education because of the simple
Cllr Robin Stuchbury - 4:49:57
nature of people moving. I remember when I read it one night this week I think
there was those you referred to it in the report how you deliver that is
another consequence because can travelling community isn't an education
aren't always bedfellows are they? Well and again it's not for the local plan to
Mr Steve Bambrick - 4:50:21
necessarily address but you know the degree to which you are able to provide
appropriate education for members of any community who are nomadic and who are travelling is
difficult and that does present a service specific difficulty that our children's colleagues
will be addressing. Just to add a bit of clarity for people who
are watching on a couple of things. So Steve Brannenbeck's comment about the number getting
Cllr Steven Broadbent - 4:50:47
ramped up, showed you how dynamic this process is
because that wasn't the case when we set sail
a fair amount of time ago on the plan.
I think it's also true to say,
in the same way the housing numbers
are made up of multiplicity of different sites,
the same is true here.
There's no silver bullet.
There's the call for sites.
There's the provision that we've put in the new developments
that will be some potential,
I can't remember the word Steve used, but basically potential densification on these
sites, the sites that do exist.
But the windfall is based on historic fact here for the last ten years.
So the windfall has some certainty around it because that has happened over time.
And I just wanted to say, though, I think there was a comment made about a bank holiday
incursion of things this does not mean enforcement of
illegal
establishment of camps disappears
I just want to say that publicly that will continue to be the case because
The local plan as with all other aspects of it is making a provision
So, you know just turning up to a field and doing things will still be enforced against I could take on a question list from
Councillor Colin
Thank You chairman, I think there's there's growing evidence now that a lot of the
Cllr Michael Collins - 4:52:14
so -called travel and gypsy sites are in fact being sublet out to others from the Central
European Community.
They are sublet and there's growing concern, certainly within an area within my ward, where
that is the case.
So the site is not occupied by members of the travelling community being sublet in this
particular case to the Romanians.
I mean there may be specific enforcement issues. I mean if there are in relation to any cases
if there are enforcement issues I'd encourage people to report them to the enforcement team
Mr Steve Bambrick - 4:52:49
we will investigate. Agreed. Right I'm going to invite um council broadband to just say
some final comments if you uh if you'd like and then I'll do I'll try and summarise the
Cllr Steven Broadbent - 4:53:01
last six hours. Look first of all couple of thank yous to all of you for uh committing
to your questions and to this process. I know you'll have more to do to put together any
recommendations and I do think that having reached this stage is worth me just extending
thanks to the officers for the work they've done today. But in preparing everything, all
this evidence we talk about is a phenomenal amount of work over an extended period of
time. But then I want to talk to residents particularly because I said at the start the
size, scale, complexity of this plan is such that it will touch virtually all areas and
all wards in different ways and all communities. We've got a legal duty to make this be compliant
in front of the inspectors so that Buckinghamshire has the best chance of getting the infrastructure
it needs, resists speculative development and therefore we have a long job ahead of
in creating communities that can thrive for people.
And that town centre discussion, I think, shows that.
So, as I alluded to earlier,
there are different policies that play a part here,
our economic growth plan, our regeneration plans and others,
that mean we've got to do the best.
And do the best even under those trying circumstances
of a big number is going to be an equal challenge,
challenge but including things like the design code.
So what gets built is of good quality
and the aesthetic reflects local areas
because obviously references we've made multiple times
to we're a long county and the communities in one part
may look and feel and operate very differently
to another part.
So we try to ensure that through those policies
and inclusion of the design code particularly
and protections that are around there,
delivering this plan over the 20 years.
At least we've done the best to respect and reflect the interests of our residents,
but means that we've got policies in place and provisions in place to create something
that means the uniqueness and the special place that Buckinghamshire is can continue.
But it will look and feel a bit different in certain places.
Densification of our towns means our towns will look different but we have an
opportunity to change how they look, feel, how we use them at the same time.
So please don't take this as me being in wholehearted support of having 91 ,000
homes but we can't just shy away from what I think our residents would expect
from us. Yes, get something over the line that is well thought through and has the
protections in it, but then deliver it in a way that means we're, um,
we're, we're trying to reflect you, uh, on what happens.
So it's still really important. Please residents in particular message to them.
When this goes line subjects cabinet,
it should go live on the 23rd of July.
Those comments are really important. And once the council will look at them,
those comments will be badged up packaged together and provided to the
Inspector as well, but you've heard today it's about the compliance of that.
I know if you're currently in a community that looks at having hundreds or thousands
more homes, that's very challenging, but we have a legal duty to do it.
And if we want to keep some control of influencing that for Buckinghamshire, this is the best
route that we have.
But I will ask you also make correspondence where needed with your MP about the infrastructure piece.
Please put comments in there about that.
The target come down from government.
That big increase of 43 % has made this all the more difficult.
But we have a plan that officers, you've heard today, are confident is compliant to inspectors.
and of course that will ultimately get tested once the council choose to submit it or not
later in November. So that done is beholden on all members because it is a council endeavour
to bring forward the local plan to make sure that as that then continues into delivery
we all work together to make sure people can thrive, communities are good, we make sure
our community health provision and our other bits of infrastructure work together.
So today was quite technical but I don't want anyone watching thinking we just think it's
a document and it's job done.
Absolutely isn't.
I live here, we all live here.
Buckinghamshire is a special place.
The local plan gives us some protection.
It's a challenge but hopefully in the cold light of day you can see this is the best
option we've got going forward to deliver all that for people.
Thank you. Can I firstly thank the officers for sticking with this through a long day,
Cllr Simon Rouse - 4:58:13
and I have to say in particular to Steve Bambrick, your endurance through it and the quality
of your answers staying high quality all the way through is very impressive. And thank
you to members because I know it's been a long session, but hopefully officers feel
and cabinet members feel you've had a rigorous examination of the plan which was obviously
the purpose of today.
It strikes me, just to build on your last point, I was quite struck by the, you know,
obviously there were 10 ,000 responses but to hear that 95 % of them came from residents
I think was reassuring.
I think what you've heard from members today is a lot of guidance around in the next phase
of the consultation ways to communicate some of the quite technical elements of this plan
and two residents to help them understand. I think it's really important that that is
picked up. I think there was also quite a lot of feedback
around some key elements of the infrastructure that are going to be really vital.
So water and sewerage was obviously a very – was a key one.
Transport, healthcare, you've obviously got the input from the HASC – the HASC contribution
to the original plan as well. And I do think, you know, the committee is
sharing, I think, some views that that infrastructure storey is a really important part of the plan
to make sure that we articulate and absolutely take on board the wider point that it's a
collective endeavour now with members of Parliament and others to get what we need for it. I think
we took a very specific action around rail as well that we'll pick up. I think there
was also quite an important point about town and parish councils understanding their neighbourhood
plans and how those neighbourhood plans sit and again I think that's an important point
to pick up. I think it was obviously a couple of points around being really clear about
how the employment sites linked to the housing growth and being able to articulate both existing
employment sites and the new ones that are coming in. And I was obviously at the very
specific question from Councillor Shafer that highlighted that. I think on affordable and
social housing, I think the devil was in the detail around that. It struck me with the
element of genuinely affordable housing that sits in that number which gets lost I think
in the higher percentages and just being really confident we've got that right given the shortfall
to the 40 % that's needed I think it was an important message.
On data centres I personally found that a reassuring answer in terms of how we would
approach it notwithstanding it's a nationally significant bit of infrastructure but again
I think helping residents understand why we've taken that approach and what the risks are
and came out.
I think very important point about how we connect the town centre density and the car
parking to give people confidence and again I think what you were outlining is there is
more work to do to make sure there is sufficient car parking.
I think the bus route point is an important one to not to lose there but again I think
there will be a lot of questions from residents about what is a perceived lack of car parking
and how that will be factored in and again I think that was an important point to take
through and then on gypsum traveller sites again.
I think that was an important point for us to get confident about the shortfall and why
we feel we've taken the right process steps.
And I think that certainly felt to me like the right way.
So I think that's my sort of headline summary.
Just for members, what we will now do is, Sally, who's done I have to say also an extraordinary
job of writing all this down, so thank you, Sally, we will try and collate those key points
into a document which we will circulate around members and we will then aim to submit some
something for cabinet that's effectively a summary largely in line with what I've just
said for cabinet, which we're going to the cabinet papers, I think, is the plan, isn't
it, next week.
One of the key things we were doing today, though, was looking at the soundness tests,
which to remind members is set out in 5 .2, which is that a local plan must be positively
prepared, justified, effective and consistent.
My sense with the discussion that we've had, we've tested that quite hard today.
We've obviously got some observations around particularly communication areas in the plan
that just need to be prodded further, but it's my view, which I just wanted to put to
members, that it feels to me like we have got to a place where we can be confident that
those soundness tests are being met.
And I just wondered if we, as a committee, could agree that that is something that we
will equally note and put into our cabinet submission.
Are members happy to do that?
I'm happy to formally second that, Chairman, because I think what we were talking about
was there were some local presentational pieces, there were some sort of clarification pieces,
but ultimately the overall plan is down. Having done this for at least four local plans, hence
why I was happy to see it as the substitute today, having done this numerous times already
and had got plans gone through first time with the inspector, we were slight little
tweakies but you know ultimately getting through this to me feels the same as
Cllr Alex Collingwood - 5:03:04
we've done previously where it's a sound plan it's got good logic good
observations and actually it delivers for the residents but he's also still
compliant with whatever they come inspectors want so I'm happy second the
fact we go say yes it's it's the sound process so it's the comments you've
already made sir Wilson and then council
thank you my answer your question because I kind of wasn't necessarily
Cllr Stuart Wilson - 5:03:29
expecting that question but I think some of the answers that we got back were
will be contingent upon the inspector in some you know we're not the judge of
soundness it's the planning inspector that will be the judge of soundness and
we recognise that there are some elements of you know at the end of the
day it'll come down to our favourite topic of planning judgement of a planning
inspector on that. So I feel slightly uncomfortable saying after three days I
can of looking at the information I can say I feel this is sound I've tried to
do the best I can in those three days to dig into all the information but you
know to be honest I don't think I would feel in a position right now to say that
I could you know give you that assurance that I feel totally sound because I've
had a very limited amount of time to to do that so I I would feel uncomfortable
sort of putting my name to that because I think it's just there's still quite a
lot to go to go through both at a Buckinghamshire but but particularly
specifically at a local level.
Councillor Stustery?
Firstly I thank you chair for what you've done today and trying to move us forward I think
Cllr Robin Stuchbury - 5:04:52
credit you for that I think you facilitated a good meeting today and I
think you should be found there I also feel it's far too early on such a short
window to say we've covered everything because if we really think we've covered
everything I think the appropriate thing we note the efforts of today to
scrutinise the plan and to ask questions I don't think anyone listening think we
think we've asked everything I think that would be unfair Eve I know the
had didn't get to ask many questions they would have wanted to ask so because
he allowed other people to ask I think that's a bit having a vote on that would
be more than I could probably support at this stage because I think scrutiny
carries on scrutiny doesn't finish with one action
scrutiny is ongoing but also just to let you know there is immense interest in
the plan I posted something f****** colleague on here the other day and I
with it which means people are generally interested in the Buckinghamshire plan. It was non -political
just saying that something was going to take place and I think that shows us a massive
interest in this so today I hope we generate more interest in it so that people here but
to say that we've done it all today it's not possible.
Yeah no so just to be clear I don't think that's what we are saying so I think in the
papers officers have set out the tests that a local plan needs to meet, officers have
Cllr Simon Rouse - 5:06:17
set out why they believe this plan meets those tests in quite a lot of detail I have to say.
And you know I know all members again worth noting have taken a huge amount of time this
week to go through all of the papers. The council needs to be in a place where a cabinet
will make a judgement itself about those soundness tests before it submits as well. I think what
I'm saying is that during the course of this session I've not heard anything from
members that suggest that we have identified anything that suggests anything other than
officers view that this is a this meets the soundness test is there I recognise
some members may not feel able to their names that and that's obviously a
position for members but I am proposed and seconded I am proposing as a
committee we know that we feel that those soundness tests have been met I'll
take just council waters and then I'm going to suggest we just take this to a
fight. Yeah, I think we've done a lot of testing, but I think I'm not sure we're all totally
Cllr Jonathan Waters - 5:07:18
on board with what the officers have said, particularly some of the earlier questioning,
particularly on some of the soundness, and particularly some of the consultation elements,
and I think there's an area of disagreement on that. So for me, I would feel uncomfortable
at the moment to actually go forward and give you – basically, we have an engagement,
not a consultation on Regulation 18. It's been dressed up differently, and I think there's
a difference of opinion of how – what that actually did deliver. That may not be your
opinion, but that's fine. Yeah, no, sure. So just to be clear, I think
So my recollection of that discussion is that we have followed all of the process steps
Cllr Simon Rouse - 5:08:02
required for delivery of the local plan and we've had that confirmed, confirmed that the
regulation 18 step was an entirely appropriate step.
The engagement was 10 ,000, over 10 ,000 responses, 95 % from residents.
The process, I think we've had confirmation was done properly, but in terms of the soundness
It's the regulation 19 phase as well that is a critical part now where it goes to proper
consultation.
So I do think that was addressed.
I know you may hold a different opinion, but we had an emphatic answer, I think, from Steve
about the process has been followed.
And I don't personally think we heard anything that stressed that that wasn't the case.
What I will propose then is that we'll put it to a vote, and we can then note those individual
members as well that don't either vote against or are not happy to support if that works.
That doesn't stop, as I say, the note that we will submit anyway, which will capture
all of the points and will note as well some of the questions that were raised about the
Regulation 18 phase. So I can ask all those in favour of noting that the Committee believes
that the soundness tests have been met to raise their hands.
And those against.
And abstentions.
Thank you.
That motion is passed.
Thank you very much.
We've just got a couple of final steps to close the meeting out, but we shall let the
rest of you go.
So that moves us on to the item 8, which is performance monitoring.

8 Performance Monitoring Q4 2025 to 2026

I did say to Councillor Wynne, who was intending to attend, that I wouldn't mind if he didn't
Cllr Simon Rouse - 5:09:38
given I thought we'd be going for a while.
What I'm going to suggest on performance monitoring
is if members have questions on any of the KPIs,
if you submit those to me and Sally,
we'll get those to Cabinet members and get the answers,
and we will make sure at the next meeting
we have a full review of the performance monitoring.
The work programme is attached.
We...
I think those are for a different committee.
Yeah, sorry.

9 Work Programme

On my notes it has the tech next work programme.
Any comments on the work programme?
I know we had a meeting to discuss it as committee members.
Again, you got anything that you want to raise?
Do let me know.
I have said that planning resources, which we were originally going to do today, we will
do in the next meeting and we will also cover one of the housing elements.
I forget which one it is now that we've got the next meeting.
But again, any comments on the work programme?
Let me know.
Anybody want to raise anything on the work programme?
Which brings us to the date of the next meeting, which is the 8th of September, 10 a .m. in the Oculus.

10 Date of Next Meeting

Thank you very much.
Enjoy your weekends.
Mr Steve Bambrick
Corporate Director Planning Growth & Sustainability
View profile Mr Steve Bambrick