Minerals Local Plan Pre-Submission Statement of Consultation
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Minerals Local Plan Pre-Submission Statement of Consultation Contents 1 Introduction 2 2 Consultation Stages 4 Issues and Options 1 - December 2005 5 Issues and Options 2 - Additional Sites Allocations (March 2006) 8 Issues and Options 3 -Further Issues and Options January 2009 9 Issues and Options 4 - Site Allocations August 2009 14 Preferred Approach- December 2010 16 Issues and Options 5 - Site Allocations - August 2011 21 Proposed Submission - January 2013 24 3 Conclusions 27 4 Appendix A Consultation techniques used for each stage 28 5 Appendix B Proposed Pre Submission Consultees 34 6 Appendix C Representations for Preferred Approach 56 7 Appendix D Representations for Site Allocations August 2011 57 8 Appendix E Topic Papers 58 9 Appendix F Consultees for Previous Stages 59 Essex County Council Minerals Local Plan Pre-Submission Statement of Consultation 1 Introduction The Minerals Local Plan sets out the vision and policies guiding minerals development in Essex until 2029. It addresses the need to provide for minerals requirements in accordance with national, sub national and local guidance, as well as social, environmental and economic considerations. It includes development management policies to guide minerals development and identifies sites for minerals development. For many years, ECC’s documents for policy development for minerals and waste planning were known as the Minerals Local Plan and the Waste Local Plan, the latest versions of which were adopted in 1996 and 2001 respectively. These are still the current plans providing the framework for determining planning applications. The Planning & Compulsory Purchase Act 2004 required us to prepare new policy documents replacing the Minerals & Waste Local Plans. These documents were to be known as the Minerals Development Document (MDD) and the Waste Development Document (WDD), forming part of the Minerals & Waste Development Framework (MWDF) suite of documents. However, following the change in national government in 2010, a new set of Town & Country Planning (Local Planning)(England) Regulations came into force in 2012, and these revert to the former terminology for development documents so that the plans are renamed Minerals and Waste Local Plans. To avoid unnecessary confusion, we shall now refer to these documents as the Replacement Minerals Local Plan (MLP) and the Replacement Waste Local Plan (WLP) as they continue to progress towards adoption. After this, they will be known as the Minerals Local Plan and the Waste Local Plan, superseding the current Minerals Local Plan of 1996 and Waste Local Plan of 2001. As required by Regulation 19 of the Town and Country Planning (Local Planning) (England) Regulations 2012, this Statement covers previous stages of consultations undertaken in preparing the Plan. The statement sets out: 1. Who was invited to make representations; 2. How they were invited to make representations; 3. A summary of the main issues raised and 4. How the issues have been addressed. Statement of Community Involvement This statement is in accordance with the adopted Essex County Council Statement of Community Involvement First Review (SCI). The SCI sets out how the Council will consult on the future policies for minerals and waste. Since the Statement of Community Involvement was first adopted in 2009 a number of emerging issues have made it appropriate to produce a revised version of the document. The changes include: 2 Essex County Council Minerals Local Plan Pre-Submission Statement of Consultation a. Changes in National Legislation and Policy Guidance New legislation such as the Town and Country Planning (Local Planning)(England) Regulations 2012, the National Planning Policy Framework 2012 and the Localism Act 2011 have affected some of the statutory requirements set out in the SCI, or the way in which procedures are carried out. The consultation period for policy documents reduces from our previous 8 weeks to the statutory 6 weeks, bringing ECC in line with neighbouring authorities and Regulation 35 of the 2012 Regulations. b. Changes in ECC Corporate Policy A shift in the County Council’s Corporate Policy to reflect the straitened economic climate nationally has led to an even greater emphasis being placed on cost-effectiveness and value for money. This is supported by the new ECC Communications and Marketing Strategy 2012- 2017 which aims to provide clear, accurate and accessible information while making the best possible and most cost-effective use of current technology. The strategy and accompanying corporate Print Policy advocate the use of electronic communication as the preferred method of communication; this has implications for our consultations both on policy documents and on planning applications. c. Behavioural and Cultural Changes Since the SCI was first drafted in 2005, public willingness to view and respond to documents electronically has increased steadily, as response rates to our consultations show. When ECC commissioned the Ipsos MORI Customer Insight Report in 2009, results indicated that the website was the preferred method of finding information about the County Council, ahead of printed information, local media, telephone or word of mouth. All the methods of public consultation used in both policy documents and planning applications contribute to the three-fold process of community involvement: providing information, encouraging consultation and promoting participation. The Statement of Community Involvement First Review incorporating the above changes underwent a consultation period from 30 August to 25 October 2012. It is intended to be adopted by Essex County Council on 12 December 2012. Essex County Council 3 Minerals Local Plan Pre-Submission Statement of Consultation 2 Consultation Stages There has been a number of consultation stages that have been undertaken in the preparation of the Replacement Minerals Local Plan. The following sections set out what consultation stages took place, when they were carried out, a summary of the main issues and what changes were made following each consultation. The continuing development of the Plan is shown by the consultation audit trail of feedback and changes, made as part of the consultation process. The Council is producing two separate local plans for minerals and waste in parallel. The Replacement Waste Local Plan is a joint plan with Southend on Sea Borough Council and is at an earlier stage of plan preparation, having completed the Preferred Approach consultation. During the preparation of the plan the Regulations that prescribe the procedures to be followed have been amended (most recently in April 2012). The first five consultation sections can be said to be equivalent to the new Regulation 18 (Preparation of a local plan), the sixth consultation section, the forthcoming Proposed Submission stage is equivalent to Regulation 19 of the new Regulations (Publication of a local plan) and Regulation 20 (Representations relating to a local plan) under which representations to the plan are made. A summary of the main issues raised in the publication stage and the previous stages will be available in a separate statement in accordance with Regulation 22 (1)(c) following the period for representations in January/February 2013. 4 Essex County Council Minerals Local Plan Pre-Submission Statement of Consultation Plan Preparation Stages of the Minerals Local Plan Issues and Options 1 - December 2005 The Issues and Options (December 2005) consultation was the first informal consultation stage in the preparation of the document that is now the Replacement Minerals Local Plan. It was made up of three separate documents. Core Strategy - a draft Core Strategy Issues and Options Paper was published in March 2005. However it was decided not to progress this further without establishing the scope for its SEA, a requirement of EU legislation as this might compromise the plan's soundness at a later stage. It was re-issued in December 2005 with any earlier consultation comments Essex County Council 5 Minerals Local Plan Pre-Submission Statement of Consultation taken into account. It's purpose was to establish general guiding principles that will determine the rate and extent of future minerals development in Essex and the general standards to which it must conform. This included nineteen questions on possible options Site Allocations - following a 'call for sites' for extraction and transhipment of minerals in July/August 2005, this set out those that had been submitted for consideration. Twenty seven sites were proposed for sand and gravel extraction, three for silica sand extraction, one for clay extraction and four were proposed as potential transhipment sites. Development Control Policies - this proposed a range of development control (now called development management) policies against which all planning applications for minerals development can be assessed. If any adverse impacts of the development cannot be adequately mitigated in accordance with these policies, planning permission will be refused. Twenty nine questions were posed with regards to the objectives and issues raised. The draft Core Strategy suggested six general objectives for sustainable minerals development, these objectives were concerned with issues such as conserving and safeguarding mineral resources as well as providing for an appropriate level of supply. Questions were posed on issues such as the landbank for sand and gravel, restoration schemes and sustainable transport facilities. The Development Control