Planning for the Role and Future of Smaller Settlements in Cornwall St Germans Testing Area Report Revised c4g, Roger Tym & Partners, Rural Innovation December 2009 www.c4g.me.uk www.tymconsult.com www.ruralinnovation.co.uk Contents 1 Introduction................................................................................................................................1 1.1 This research........................................................................................................................1 1.2 Critical Context - climate change – a new frame for everything............................................1 1.3 A structure for thinking and policy.........................................................................................3 2 The St Germans testing area.....................................................................................................5 3 Current position ........................................................................................................................7 3.1 Living within environmental limits..........................................................................................7 3.2 Ensuring a strong, healthy and just society...........................................................................9 3.3 Achieving a Sustainable Economy......................................................................................13 4 Sustainability state and potential............................................................................................15 4.2 Current State......................................................................................................................15 4.3 Potential..............................................................................................................................15 5 Workshop Feedback ...............................................................................................................17 1 Introduction 1.1 This research 1.1.1 This study is about the smaller settlements in Cornwall, and will inform the forthcoming Core Strategy of the Local Development Framework (LDF) – the replacement for the Structure Plan and the Local Plans. This, in principle, covers all of the towns other than Camborne/Pool/Redruth, Falmouth-Penryn, and Truro. These are recognised as Strategically Significant Cities and Towns in the Regional Spatial Strategy, which leaves the rest of the Cornish towns and villages to be covered by locally-based policy. 1.1.2 It has been agreed with Cornwall Council that this study will deal with settlements identified as of local significance. This leaves all of the remaining towns and villages with the exception of Newquay, Penzance and St Austell which have been identified as Sub-Regionally Significant Towns. So the study’s reach extends to some of the very smallest villages and hamlets in the county. This is because the majority of the County's population (64%) live outside Camborne/Pool/Redruth, Falmouth-Penryn, Truro and the other larger towns (Newquay, Penzance and St Austell, Bodmin. Saltash and Torpoint). 1.1.3 This work is intended to provide this by examining a range of available data to see what we can find out about the sustainability of smaller settlements, and how new development and other measures might make then more sustainable in future. 1.1.4 Part of this work involves testing areas, of which St Germans is one, where data is brought together for the settlements in the testing area, and the testing area as a whole, to provide and assessment of its current sustainability, and to help determine its future sustainability potential. We anticipate that there will not be a 'one size fits all' solution for the Cornish smaller settlements. Conditions vary across the county and policy and decisions will need to take account of this. For this reason the nine testing areas have been picked to be different from one another. 1.1.5 The testing meeting is an opportunity to: • check that the data we have collected is right / makes sense • fill in understanding that the data cannot provide but which local people might be able to • consider together the sustainability potential of the area as a whole and settlements within it • identify any particular opportunities or challenges the settlements or area have 1.1.6 Information from the meeting will be fed back into the main report, which will be finished by the end of November. The report will be taken into account as the Council works from that point forward to put together the LDF. This is a research report to inform Cornwall Council's planning work. The following reflects our analysis, for discussion. It will be for the Council to decide how the discussions and conclusions from this work will be used to develop Council policy and plans. 1.2 Critical Context - climate change – a new frame for everything 1.2.1 The Climate Change Act (2008) set the target for a 80% cut in Greenhouse Gasses (GHG) by 2050. More recently (July 2009) we have had the first national GHG budget in support of the Act, contained in the climate change White Paper, The UK Low Carbon Transition Plan, and a suite of supporting strategies (transport, economy) and evidence. 1 1.2.2 It is very clear from this raft of national policies and programmes that by 2020 the ways in which we harvest and use energy, how our homes and workplaces are supplied with energy, heated and can conserve energy, and our means and patterns of transport will be quite different from those we know today and the trends which have led to then over the preceding years. What is not yet clear is what this will specifically mean for smaller settlements in rural areas – market towns and villages and therefore much of Cornwall. 1.2.3 Part of the job of this research is to start working this out. The LDF period lasts to 2026 – six years after 2020 – which means that this LDF has to be a 'Low Carbon Transition' LDF - moving us firmly towards and era of much reduced GHG emissions, with greater reach than the national strategies. In addition, for planning, the Supplement to Planning Policy Statement 1 - Planning and Climate Change (2007) has already filled in some detail. 1.2.4 The main way in which rural areas and settlements differ from urban ones is in terms of transport use. Rural residents have more cars, use them more often and travel longer distances in them1. This is a 'chicken and egg' issue – the real cost of motoring has been in decline for decades (see graph overleaf), and continues to do so. Rural settlements have lost services, facilities and employment sites while their populations have grown2. The cheapness of the private car has brought greater mobility to rural households, and changed their behaviour. They are now travelling further to work and to access services. Rural residents have become increasingly dependent on high mobility – but does it have to be this way? The Real Cost of Motoring – Transport Trends 2008 1 National Travel Survey series, DfT 2 State of the Countryside series, CRC 2 1.2.5 However the new national strategies, The UK Low Carbon Transition Plan and Low Carbon Transport: A Greener Future both make it clear that transport emissions need to be reduced (they are currently increasing). This, then, raises stiff challenges for rural areas. Fundamentally, this means that the high levels of personal and other mobility currently characterising rural life will have to be reduced, starting soon and accelerating though the coming decades. So, is this a threat or an opportunity? Rural life has only relatively recently been characterised by high mobility and car-dependence. It is by no means a pre-condition of rural life. The basic sustainability challenge, then, is to maintain and improve the wellbeing of rural communities, and the economies which support them, under new transport conditions where household and businesses can access the things they need without over-reliance on the car and without having to travel too far. This is functional sustainability. Localisation is a term for this. 1.2.6 For this to work it means that smaller settlements, either individually or in groups, will need to contain most of the services, facilities and jobs their populations need, and the low-carbon transport links to join then up. It also means that rural housing markets will need to be more balanced – particularly containing more affordable housing – so that all sorts of people can live close to services, facilities and jobs. 1.2.7 A greater sustainability should strengthen rural communities, not weaken them. 1.3 A structure for thinking and policy 1.3.1 Part of this research project is to think harder about how to deliver greater sustainability to smaller rural settlements. The following is our suggestion for how this might be done. 1.3.2 We have expressed these core issues for planning for smaller settlements in the LDF as a vision and objectives. The vision sets the overall direction. The objectives explain how the vision should be delivered. The vision is set within that of The UK Government Sustainable Development Strategy , which has four leading components: ▪ Living Within Environmental Limits ▪ Ensuring a Strong, Healthy and Just Society ▪ Achieving a Sustainable Economy ▪ Promoting Good Governance . 1.3.3 We have used the first three as governance structures are beyond the direct scope of the LDF. Vision Cornwall's smaller settlements will, either individually or in combination, become functionally sustainable, making their full contribution in the achievement of the national GHG