Hampshire Portsmouth, Southampton, New Forest and South Downs National Park Minerals and Waste Plan Draft Version – September 2011 1 Contents 1. Introduction........................................................................................................................................... 9 2. Vision and Spatial Strategy ................................................................................................................ 11 3. Protecting Hampshire’s Environment............................................................................................. 22 4. Maintaining Hampshire’s Communities.......................................................................................... 36 5. Supporting Hampshire’s Economy................................................................................................. 48 6. Plan review and long term safeguarding.......................................................................................... 93 7. Implementation................................................................................................................................... 95 8. Monitoring........................................................................................................................................... 96 Glossary and abbreviations....................................................................................................................... 97 Appendices................................................................................................................................................109 Appendices A: Relationship between old and new policies B: Implementation Plan C: Key Diagram D: List of safeguarded minerals and waste sites E: Site allocations F: Monitoring Plan 2 List of policies Protecting Hampshire’s Environment Policy 1: Climate change - mitigation and adaptation Policy 2: Protection of habitats and species Policy 3: Protection of the landscape Policy 4: Protection of the countryside Policy 5: Southwest Hampshire Green Belt Policy 6: Conserving the historic environment and heritage assets Policy 7: Protection of soils Policy 8: Restoration of quarries and landfill Maintaining Hampshire’s Communities Policy 9: Protecting public health, safety and amenity Policy 10: Flood risk and prevention Policy 11: Managing impacts from traffic Policy 12: High quality design of minerals and waste development Policy 13: Planning conditions and obligations Policy 14: Community benefits Supporting Hampshire’s Economy Policy 15: Safeguarding - mineral resources (Sand and gravel and brick-making clay) Policy 16: Safeguarding - minerals infrastructure Policy 17: Aggregate Supply – capacity and source Policy 18: Recycled & Secondary aggregates development Policy 19: Aggregate wharves and rail depots Policy 20: Sand and gravel development Policy 21: Brick-making Clay development Policy 22: Chalk development Policy 23: Oil and Gas development Policy 24: Waste Management Hierarchy Policy 25: Safeguarding - waste infrastructure Policy 26: Recycling, recovery and landfill capacity Policy 27: Energy from waste development Policy 28: Locations for new waste management development Policy 29: Construction waste development Policy 30: Liquid waste management development Policy 31: Inert waste development Policy 32: Non-hazardous waste landfill Policy 33: Hazardous waste landfill Plan review and long term safeguarding Policy 34: Long term safeguarding 7 Foreword Hampshire has some of the most beautiful countryside and coastline in the UK – one of the reasons so many choose to live here. As the partner Hampshire minerals and waste planning authorities (the Hampshire authorities), we must strike a careful balance between any potential impact on the environment and our communities while supporting our future prosperity. Although Hampshire has a strong economy, we cannot take this for granted. One aspect of supporting economic growth is ensuring we are able to maintain a reliable supply of minerals and have excellent management of our waste, while protecting the environment and our communities. This is what the Hampshire authorities mean by sustainable development. We need minerals such as sand and gravel to build and repair our homes and roads. Minerals also help to keep Hampshire’s economy healthy. Sand and gravel (aggregates) cannot practicably be transported very far and must be dug out of the ground where they are found, or dredged from the sea. Although we are already good at using recycled materials for building and repairing our homes, roads and infrastructure, we still need a reliable source of sand, gravel and other minerals for our future prosperity. Some of these have to be from local quarries. Waste is another important issue we need to tackle. Everyone produces things that need to be disposed of - although the amount of waste is going down, we have to find ways of dealing with waste that create as little environmental impact as possible. All mineral and waste developments require planning permission from one of the partner minerals and waste planning authorities and often an ‘environmental permit’ from the Environment Agency. These consents protect communities and the environment from adverse impacts. They also ensure proper restoration of quarries to agriculture or open space and improved opportunities for recreation or biodiversity. Most new waste facilities are located within industrial areas, which means they impact on fewer residents and keep our green areas safe from development. The Hampshire Minerals and Waste Plan (the Plan) will make sure that we have enough minerals for Hampshire’s needs and can deal with our waste effectively. This includes seeing waste material that cannot be reused or recycled as a resource, and that can be used as a renewable energy for our homes and businesses. Our overriding concern is to ensure that any mineral or waste proposal is the right development, in the right place, at the right time. 8 1. Introduction 1.1 The County Council, the City Councils and the National Park Authorities, as the minerals and waste planning authorities in Hampshire (the Hampshire Authorities), have chosen to work together to produce a plan for all minerals and waste development in Hampshire. This is the Hampshire Minerals and Waste Plan (the Plan) and is part of the development plan for Hampshire. In addition to all of the Hampshire minerals and waste planning authorities working together, we have worked in cooperation with the local planning authorities and adjacent minerals and waste planning authorities. This ensures that the Plan reflects and supports other plans and programmes for the area, including other local development plan documents, community strategies and specific policy strategies such as the local transport plans along with low carbon and energy strategies. 1.2 In this plan we have set out the vision, objectives, spatial strategy, and policies to enable the delivery of sustainable minerals and waste development that is right for Hampshire until 2030. In other words, it explains how mineral resources should be exploited and supplied and waste management infrastructure developed so Hampshire’s the environment will be protected, its communities maintained and the local economy supported. Accordingly, in any determination under the Planning Acts about minerals and waste development in Hampshire, due regard should be given to all parts of the Plan and appropriate weight given to those parts that are judged to be most relevant. 1.3 The Plan replaces the Hampshire Minerals and Waste Core Strategy adopted in July 2007 and the ‘saved’ policies from the Hampshire, Portsmouth and Southampton Minerals and Waste Local Plan (1998) (see Appendix A). This plan forms a complete replacement of the Core Strategy and comprises three elements, including the; strategic approach and policies; strategic sites considered necessary to deliver the plan objectives and 9 generic and sites specific development management policies. 1.4 In preparing this Plan, we have published for public three consultation documents; ‘Have Your Say about Changes to the Hampshire Minerals & Waste Core Strategy’ 1 and ‘Have Your Say on Planning for Hampshire’s Minerals and Waste’2 (which included a supplementary consultation ‘Have Your Say – Additional Mineral Issues’3). These three documents and the associated public engagement, formed part of the consultation process required under regulation 25 of the Town and Country Planning (Local Development) (England) (Amendment) Regulations 2008, and the responses received have helped us prepare the revised strategy and policy framework. 1.5 In order to create a plan for sustainable development, we have produced a policy framework to guide decision making in relation to minerals and waste development. This framework aims to provide for the protection of the environment and local communities whilst supporting the local economy. It identifies a number of local extraction sites for sharp sand and gravel, soft sand and brick making clay, as well as for new rail depots and landfill sites, to help provide clarity and certainty of delivery. The Plan does not generally identify waste sites, other than landfill, but instead the spatial policies are designed to guide development to the right locations. The Plan considers the longer term options for the sustainable development of minerals and waste management infrastructure and provides for them through a further safeguarding policy. 1.6 The Plan also includes an Implementation Plan (see