Essex and Southend-On-Sea Replacement Waste Local Plan
Total Page:16
File Type:pdf, Size:1020Kb
Essex and Southend-on-Sea Replacement Waste Local Plan PRE-SUBMISSION DRAFT: CONSULTATION STATEMENT December 2015 REPLACEMENT WASTE LOCAL PLAN PRE-SUBMISSION CONSULTATION STATEMENT Introduction Essex County Council and Southend-on-Sea Borough Council have worked in partnership to prepare a new joint Essex and Southend-on-Sea Replacement Waste Local Plan. As required by Regulation 22 (1) (c) of the Town and Country Planning (Local Planning) (England) Regulations 2012, this statement details the stages of consultation / engagement undertaken in preparing the Replacement Waste Local Plan (RWLP). This statement includes information on the four consultations held prior to the Pre- Submission engagement stage. In particular, this statement sets out: Who was invited to make representations How they were invited to make representations A summary of the main issues raised by those representations How the issues have been addressed in the plan Name Change The Town & Country Planning (Local Planning) (England) Regulations 2012 has resulted in a name change for our waste development documents. Previous consultation stages that led to the Replacement Waste Local Plan (RWLP) were referred to as the Waste Development Document (WDD). Once the plan is adopted, it will supersede the current Joint Waste Local Plan of 2001 and be known as the Essex & Southend-on-Sea Waste Local Plan. The first two stages of consultation carried out pre-2012 regulations - Issues & Options and the Preferred Approach - are referred to as the Waste Development Document throughout this statement. Statement of Community Involvement This statement sets out engagement / consultation that is considered to have been undertaken in accordance with the Essex County Council Statement of Community Involvement (SCI), which was adopted in September 2015 and Southend-on-Sea Borough Council’s SCI, adopted in 2013. Both SCIs set out how the councils should consult on the future policies for minerals and waste. Earlier stages of the Waste Local Plan were in accordance with the Essex Statement of Community Involvement adopted in October 2009 and December 2012, and Southend-Borough-Council’s SCI adopted in 2009. Duty to Co-operate The duty to co-operate has been a requirement since 2011. This is addressed in a separate document titled the Duty to Co-operate Report. This provides the evidence to demonstrate that Essex County Council and Southend-on-Sea have met 1 the legal and soundness requirements relating to cooperation in preparing their Replacement Waste Local Plan. It outlines the stages undertaken in its preparation, before identifying the strategic issues and describing the cooperation undertaken with relevant prescribed bodies. Consultation stages Four consultation stages have been undertaken in the preparation of the Replacement Waste Local Plan: Pre-Submission Draft. 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. 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 four consultations can be said to be equivalent to the new Regulation 18 (Preparation of a local plan), the fifth engagement - the Pre-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. Issues and Options – October 2010 The Waste Development Document - Issues and Options October 2010 consultation (WDD I&O) was the first informal consultation stage in the preparation of the document that is now the Replacement Waste Local Plan Draft. The I&O was prepared in accordance with Planning Policy Statement 10 (Planning for Sustainable Waste Management). While the Regional planning body had just been abolished and the Regional Spatial Strategy revoked, the data from the Submission Regional Spatial Strategy (RSS) (2010) was considered at the time to still be the most up-to- date and robust evidence available. The three permitted Integrated Waste Management Facilities with recycling, composting, treatment and energy recovery processes, located at Rivenhall Airfield, Stanway and Basildon were considered to have a vital role in ensuring the Plan area’s waste management infrastructure met the required capacity for LACW and C&I waste to push waste management up the hierarchy. Predicted capacity gaps for waste management and disposal facilities, included inert, non-hazardous and hazardous landfill void space, composting and C&D Recycling facilities. The consultation document included information and questions on core strategy, development management policy issues and importantly contained the first public ‘call for sites’. Key questions for which feedback was sought was whether it was desirable to plan for net-self-sufficiency and adhere to what had been the Plan area’s apportionment figure in the RSS for London’s wastes. There were also key questions around where new facilities were sought including whether it was best to expand and co-locate with existing facilities, utilising existing key urban centres of population and growth, decentralised approach or focusing on area with limited existing capacity. 2 There were also questions around what types of sites would be most suitable for different waste management facilities. At this time it was envisaged that the main WDD was to comprise the Waste Core Strategy, Development Management (DM) polices and strategic site allocations. There was also intended to be a subsequent document for Non- Strategic Site Allocations. Consequently there was a question around how best to define strategic and non-strategic sites e.g., size, area, throughput etc. The consultation was prepared and delivered in accordance with the Town and Country Planning (Local Development) (England) Regulations 2008. It was conducted as informal consultation under the then Regulation 25 (pre-submission consultation) which notified the specific and general consultation bodies, as considered appropriate by Essex County Council and Southend-on-Sea Borough Council. The Issues and Options consultation was held for an eight-week period from 7 October to 2 December 2010. Who was consulted and how The consultation document and/or summary document and CD along with a letter containing a web link to the documents on the council website were sent to those consultees selected in accordance with the Town and Country Planning (Local Development) (England) Regulations 2008. The consultee list included the required statutory bodies (such as the Highways Agency, the Environment Agency, Natural England) and local district/borough and parish/town councils, as well as the appropriate MPs, community groups and the wider business/waste industry for both Essex and Southend. A full list of consultees for this stage can be found in Appendix B. The consultation was publicised to Essex and Southend residents via a poster campaign (to all Essex and Southend libraries, district/borough council offices, parish/town councils and gyspy/traveller sites for noticeboards), a public notice that appeared at the start of the consultation in newspapers covering Essex and Southend, a press release which was circulated to the relevant local press and media at the start of the consultation period. News of the consultation also featured on the Essex County Council and Southend- on-Sea Borough Council websites, in Making the Links (a monthly newsletter distributed to all Essex parish/town councils) and also on Engage Essex – ECC’s consultation website. An A5 leaflet detailing the consultation and the consultation events was sent out to ECC members, parish/town councils, waste collection authorities and handed out at consultation events. With the aim of raising maximum public awareness of the consultation a series of public roadshows and workshops were held throughout the consultation period – see details below in Additional Consultation Activities. 3 Inspection copies of the main document and its accompanying summary were available at all Essex and Southend libraries – A CD of supporting documents was made available on request. The document, its summary and a CD of the full suite of consultation documents was supplied to all district/borough councils and all was made available to view at Essex and Southend-on Sea council offices on request. All consultation documents were also available to view on both councils’ websites, as was the response form and dates for the roadshows and workshops. Additional consultation activities Thirteen roadshows were held in libraries around the county, including Southend during the consultation period. The roadshows were free and open to all members of the public so that they were given to speak with officers on a one-to-one basis about the document and the consultation. Both Essex County Council and Southend-on- Sea Borough Council’s felt the roadshows provided an informal environment to respond to residents’ questions compared to public meetings. Holding open events on various dates throughout the day and occasionally the evening, when library times permitted, gave seldom heard groups more chance of learning about the consultation. Summary documents, CDs of the full document suite,