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Statement of Consultation Part 1 Regulation 18 Consultation on the Draft Site Allocations and Development Management Plan Braintree District Council January 2014 Contents 1. Background 2. Introduction 3. Consultation Process 4. Consultation Responses Received 5. Summary of Main Issues and Officer Response Appendix Appendix 1 a) Copy of the response form b) Copy of the guidance notes Appendix 2 a) Copy of the notification letter sent to statutory consultees b) Copy of the notification letter send to non-statutory consultees c) Appendix 3 List consultees Appendix 4 a) Copy of the advert placed in local newspapers b) Copy of the posters used to advertise consultation c) Example of a site notice Addendum Copy of agendas, reports and minutes of the LDF Sub Committees of the 26 th March, 11 th April, 8 th May, 30 th May, 13 th June, 17 th June, 11 th July, 24 th July 2013. 2 1. Background In accordance with Regulation 22(l) (c) (i-iv) of the Town and Country Planning (Local Planning)(England) Regulations 2012, this is a factual statement which sets out the following information; (i) Which bodies and persons Braintree District Council invited to make representations under Regulation 18 on the draft Site Allocations and Development Management Plan (ii) How these bodies and persons were invited to make representations under Regulation 18 (iii) A summary of the main issues raised by the representations made pursuant to Regulation 18 (iv) How representations made pursuant of Regulation 18 were taken into account. 2. Introduction Braintree District Council adopted its Core Strategy in September 2011. This set out the overall spatial vision for the District and includes strategic policies in relation to housing, employment, retail, the natural and built environment, open space and infrastructure. In order to complete the suite of documents which make up a Local Development Framework, work on a Site Allocations and Development Management Plan began soon after the adoption of the Core Strategy. The purpose of the Site Allocations and Development Management Plan is to provide further detail on the implementation of the vision and strategic policies set out in the Core Strategy. It includes detailed development management policies which will be used in the consideration of planning applications in the District, the allocation of non-strategic sites for housing, employment, retail and other community uses and reviewed development boundaries for towns, villages and employment sites. If found sound at examination, the Plan will replace the remaining policies and maps in the Local Plan Review 2005. This consultation statement sets out the way in which consultation was carried out under Regulation 18 on the draft Site Allocation and Development Management Plan, the results of that consultation including the numbers of responses and the main issues raised and how these comments were taken into account when completing the Pre Submission Site Allocation and Development Management Plan. 3. Consultation Process The draft Site Allocations and Development Management Plan was published for 6 weeks between 9 th January and 22 nd February 2013. The Council also consulted on a revised Statement of Community Involvement at the same time. 3 The development management part of the Plan included a proposed policy and also set out the alternative options which had also been considered. The Site Allocations part of the Plan included a proposed map and in most cases one or more alternative maps which included all the alternative sites which had been proposed for development and considered by the Council. The Plan was published on the Council’s website through its online consultation portal, alongside the SA/SEA. It was also available to download from the website as a pdf, as was the full evidence base of the Plan. A hard copy of the Plan was available to view at the main Council offices in Braintree and libraries in the District had a copy of the Plan on CD. All statutory consultees were also sent a copy of the Plan on CD and paper copies were available on request. A representation form and guidance notes on how to respond were also published on the website and were distributed in paper form on request, including at the exhibition events and these are included in Appendix 1a and b. Other written correspondence in the form of letters and emails were also accepted as representations. All statutory consultees including Town and Parish Councils, neighbouring local authorities and major stakeholders such as the Environment Agency and Natural England were informed by letter of the consultation and sent a copy of the Plan on CD. Notification letters/emails were also were also sent to all those on the LDF consultation database which includes local people, special interest groups, land owners and developers who had been asked to be kept informed on the process. This was in the region of 2000 notification letters and emails. A copy of the letters sent to statutory consultees and non-statutory consultees can be found in Appendix 2 a and b respectively. A list of the people who were notified of the consultation can be found in Appendix 3. To order to ensure as wider public consultation and knowledge of the Plan and to stimulate local debate, a number of other publicity measures were undertaken by the Council. This included highlighting the consultation on the Council’s website, advertising the consultations in local papers and advertising the consultation on social media sites and in the Council’s electronic magazine. Posters were also produced which were distributed to local Parish and Town Councils and displayed on community notice boards. The Council also produced site notices which were displayed adjacent to all residential sites of 10 or more and all new employment allocations. A copy of the advert in local papers, posters and the site notices are included in Appendix 4 a, b and c respectively. The Council also held a series a public consultation events across the District. These were an opportunity for members of the public to find out further information on what was being proposed, discuss this with officers and provide feedback. The exhibitions were held in the three main towns (two sessions in Braintree and Witham) and in the six key service villages and Great Yeldham (Great Yeldham had the largest residential allocation of all the ‘Other Villages’ and is located further north than the key service villages). At least two officers from Planning Policy were available at all times during the consultation events. Each consultation event included site specific information relating to that town or village and maps for all the towns and villages were available for discussion with officers at every event. Set out below is a list of the days and times of the events held and the number of attendees; 4 Date a nd Time Location Number of Attendees 15 th January 1.30pm – 6.30pm Earls Colne 62 16 th January 2.30pm – 7.30pm Witham 46 17 th January 2.30pm – 7.30pm Witham 61 21 st January 2.30pm – 7.30pm Braintree 46 22 nd January 2.30pm – 7.30pm Braintree 66 23 rd January 2.30pm – 7.30pm Great Yeldham 70 24 th January 2.30pm – 7.30pm Coggeshall 100 28 th January 2.30pm – 7.30pm Halstead 86 30 th January 2.30pm – 7.30pm Hatfield Peverel 137 31 st January 2.30pm – 7.30pm Sible Hedingham 62 6th February 2.30pm – 7.30pm Kelvedon 123 7th February 2.30pm – 7.30pm Silver End 18 As well as the staffed exhibition, an unmanned display was also available at Braintree and Witham libraries for the full 6 week consultation period and at Halstead library between the 9th and 22 nd February. Other libraries in the District had a copy of the document on CD which could be viewed during normal opening hours. 4. Consultation Responses Received During the consultation period 1636 individual comments were received from 1007 separate consultees. Several petitions were also received. During the consultation there was the opportunity for land- owners to submit further sites for consideration. 54 such sites were submitted across the District. All duly made representations were processed and added to the Council’s consultation database. This means that they in the public domain and available to view. Comments received were then considered in detail village by village and through the policy chapters by the LDF Sub Committee at their meetings on the 26 th March, 11 th April, 8 th May, 30 th May, 13 th June, 17 th June and 11 th July 2013 and changes were recommended in response to those comments. The meeting on the 24 th July included consideration of the comments on the SA/SEA. The agendas, reports and minutes of these meetings can be found in the addendum to this document Prior to each LDF Sub Committee meeting, Planning Policy officers notified those people who had commented on the sites, plans or policies which were to be considered at that meeting. Officers also informed the landowners of sites, the relevant Town or Parish Council and local ward members. The meetings were also generally webcast, enabling members of the public not able to attend in person, to view proceedings. Of the comments that were received during the consultation period, around 24% were submitted directly to the online consultation portal, Objective, 22% were submitted by email and the remaining 54% were received by letter. 5 5. Summary of Main Issues Raised The remaining part of the document includes a summary of the main issues raised through the consultation, chapter by chapter and village by village. For each there is a summary of the comments and issues raised during the consultation period and what changes have been made to the document following the public consultation period.