Published by The Stationery Office and available from: The Stationery Office (mail, telephone and fax orders only) PO Box 29, Norwich NR3 1GN General enquiries/Telephone orders 0870 600 5522 Fax orders 0870 600 5533 www.thestationeryoffice.com The Stationery Office Bookshops 123 Kingsway, London WC2B 6PQ 020 7242 6393 Fax 020 7242 6394 68-69 Bull Street, Birmingham B4 6AD 0121 236 9696 Fax 0121 236 9699 33 Wine Street, Bristol BS1 2BQ 0117 926 4306 Fax 0117 929 4515 9-21 Princess Street, Manchester M60 8AS 0161 834 7201 Fax 0161 833 0634 16 Arthur Street, Belfast BT1 4GD 028 9023 8451 Fax 028 9023 5401 The Stationery Office Oriel Bookshop 18-19 High Street, Cardiff CF1 2BZ 029 2039 5548 Fax 029 2038 4347 71 Lothian Road, Edinburgh EH3 9AZ 0870 606 5566 Fax 0870 606 5588 The Stationery Office’s Accredited Agents (see Yellow Pages) and through good booksellers £18 GOVERNMENT OFFICE FOR THE SOUTH EAST GOVERNMENT OFFICE FOR EAST OF ENGLAND GOVERNMENT OFFICE FOR LONDON Regional Planning Guidance for the South East (RPG 9) March 2001 London: The Stationery Office Government Office for the South East Bridge House 1 Walnut Tree Close Guildford GU1 4GA Telephone 01483 884824 or 882516 Internet service http://www.go-se.gov.uk/infor/planning-HTML © Crown copyright 2001 Copyright in the typographical arrangement and design vests in the Crown. Extracts of this publication may be made for non-commercial in-house use, subject to the source being acknowledged. Applications for reproduction should be made in writing to The Copyright Unit, Her Majesty’s Stationery Office, St Clements House, 2-16 Colegate, Norwich NR3 1BQ. ISBN 0 11753562 1 Printed in Great Britain for The Stationery Office on material containing 75% post-consumer waste and 25% ECF pulp. March 2001 TJ003602 C15 03/01 9385 14315 Contents Chapter Page 1 Introduction ......................................................................................................... 3 2 Context ................................................................................................................ 5 3 Vision and Key Development Principles .............................................................. 9 4 Core Strategy for the Region ............................................................................. 13 5 Quality of Life in Town and Country ................................................................... 18 6 Environmental Strategy and the Countryside .................................................... 31 7 The Regional Economy ..................................................................................... 39 8 Housing ............................................................................................................. 47 9 Regional Transport Strategy .............................................................................. 55 10 Supply and Development of Other Infrastructure – Water, Waste and Energy ... 72 11 Minerals............................................................................................................. 81 12 Sub-Regional Areas .......................................................................................... 85 13 Implementation, Monitoring and Review ............................................................ 98 Maps 1 The South East Region in Context................................................................... 103 2 Core Strategy .................................................................................................. 104 3 Communications (studies) ............................................................................... 105 4 Environment .................................................................................................... 106 5 Economic Development ................................................................................... 107 6 Administrative Areas........................................................................................ 108 Annex List of Planning Policy Guidance Notes and .................................................... 109 other documents referred to in the text 1 Chapter 1 Introduction 1.1 This Regional Planning Guidance for the South East (RPG9) is provided by the Secretary of State for the Environment, Transport and the Regions. It covers the period up to 2016 setting the framework for the longer term future. This guidance supersedes the Regional Planning Guidance for the South East issued in March 1994, which covered the period up to 2011. 1.2 The primary purpose of this guidance is to provide a regional framework for the preparation of local authority development plans and, in London, for the Mayor’s Spatial Development Strategy. Throughout this guidance ‘South East’ refers to the Greater London area and the areas covered by the shire county, unitary and district councils for Bedfordshire, Berkshire, Buckinghamshire, East Sussex, Essex, Hampshire, Hertfordshire, the Isle of Wight, Kent, Oxfordshire, Surrey and West Sussex. 1.3 The other purpose of this guidance is to provide the spatial framework for other strategies and programmes. These include the preparation of local transport plans by local authorities, the regional strategies of the South East of England Development Agency (SEEDA) and East of England Development Agency (EEDA), and the strategies prepared by the Mayor of London including those for economic development and transport. 1.4 This guidance takes account of Government policies as set out in Planning Policy Guidance Notes (PPGs), Minerals Planning Guidance Notes (MPGs), circulars and other Government statements including White Papers. A list is included in the Annex and includes the new PPG11 (Regional Planning) published in October 2000. This RPG should be read in conjunction with the more detailed existing guidance contained in: • Thames Gateway Planning Framework (RPG9a) issued in 1995; • Strategic Guidance for London Planning Authorities (RPG3) issued in 1996 (to be superseded by the Mayor’s Spatial Development Strategy); and • Strategic Planning Guidance for the River Thames (RPG3b/9b) issued in 1997. 1.5 All parts of this guidance must be taken into account by local planning authorities in preparing their development plans and may be material to decisions on individual planning applications and appeals. Preparation of Regional Planning Guidance 1.6 SERPLAN issued A Sustainable Development Strategy for the South East for consultation as Draft RPG9 in December 1998. This was the subject of a Public Examination held by an independent Panel, whose report was published in October 1999. After due consideration of the Panel’s recommendations as well as all the representations made on the Draft RPG, the Secretary of State issued his Proposed Changes to Draft RPG9 and Reasons for the Proposed Changes in March 2000. These were the subject of public consultation over a twelve week period, as a result of which the Secretary of State made further changes which are incorporated in this final guidance. 3 1.7 The process of preparation of this guidance by SERPLAN began prior to the publication of draft Planning Policy Guidance on Regional Planning, Draft PPG11 (Regional Planning) in February 1999. As a result, this guidance, in its present form, does not fully accord with the advice in PPG11 on the scope and format of RPG. In particular, it is insufficiently regionally specific in places and therefore resorts to references to national policy. In order to develop regional policy in a number of aspects, further work will be required as part of the updating and review process. The Secretary of State expects early reviews of this RPG, with advice from the new regional planning bodies, particularly in respect of: • Retail strategy (chapter 5); • Tourism, including links with sport, recreation and cultural facilities (chapter 7); • Housing provision and distribution in the light of monitoring and the results of urban capacity studies and potential growth area studies (chapter 8); • Regional transport strategy (chapter 9); • Waste and renewable energy (chapter 10); • Minerals (chapter 11); and • Monitoring (chapter 13). Regional Planning Bodies and the Mayor of London 1.8 Throughout this guidance reference is made to ‘Regional Planning Bodies and the Mayor of London’. These bodies have responsibility for implementation, monitoring and review of this guidance. They include SERPLAN who are the existing Regional Planning Body, the new Mayor of London and the organisations which will assume responsibility for regional planning in the Government Office regions for the South East and East of England once SERPLAN is wound up in March 2001. Bedfordshire, Essex and Hertfordshire will be joined with Cambridgeshire, Norfolk and Suffolk in a new East of England regional planning body, and the South East of England Regional Assembly will become the new regional planning body for the Government Office South East region. 1.9 The Mayor of London is preparing a Spatial Development Strategy for London. Future reviews of RPG for the Eastern and South East regions are to be based on Government Office boundaries. However, given the economic, transportation and social interdependence of London and the wider South East Region, pan-regional co-ordination arrangements have been agreed between the Greater London Authority and the new regional planning bodies for the South East and East of England regions. 4 Chapter 2 Context 2.1 With around 18.1 million people the South East has the largest regional population in the UK. At its heart lies London, a world city with a population