Sunday 28 August 2016

Should the public be involved in Brent's review of the Local Plan?

The report going to the Resources and Public Realm Committee on the Council's Planning Committee proposes a review of the Local Plan.

It proposes a 'Local plan Working Party' to carry this out made up of 'a representative group of councillors' . The first, rather clumsy, sentence of this section of the report mentions the local community but there is no mention of residents' associations or other community groups making a contribution to such a working party.

Surely they should be involved at an early stage to avoid further disaffection and feelings of powerlessness in the force of development and regeneration?

Extract:

To plan proactively for its future and guide development in the form and location where the Council and the local community feels it is most appropriate, the Council will need to start a review of the Local Plan. Whilst it provides the opportunity to refresh the Council’s approach to support current corporate priorities, it is likely to involve some potentially difficult decisions in prioritising housing delivery against other considerations, e.g. balancing affordable/family housing requirements against facilitating what will be high levels of housing delivery; the extent to which low density housing in areas with high public transport accessibility are considered sustainable in the long term; and safeguarding and providing existing infrastructure and non-residential uses against the need to meet housing targets. To meet housing needs and support timely regeneration/development, the Council is also likely to have to take a greater pro-active approach to site assembly/direct delivery than might have been the case in the past.

To ensure a wider elected democratic mandate a representative group of councillors will be involved in and facilitate the content and direction of the Local Plan as it makes its way through the adoption process. It is proposed that this will be through a Local Plan Working Party, for example dealing with vision and objectives and how themes, such as housing and employment can best contribute to these. The extent and timing of the review will become cleared once a restructure of Planning has been undertaken and the Development Management Policies Plan has been adopted.

2 comments:

Nan. said...

Whatever the Council does will be the usual token public involvement exercise and nothing more.

It is clear from the extract below that the council has already decided (or had decided for it)
(a) the fact that there will have to be high density housing development around stations and transport hubs generally, and
(b) the difficulty there will be in providing accommodation suitable for families whist trying to build as many units as possible on any given space.

In order for public consultation and involvement to be meaningful, the council needs to spell out those aspects of development in which its hands are effectively tied and then people can understand those matters over which it is possible to have a say locally.

Extract from above -

" ... it is likely to involve some potentially difficult decisions in prioritising housing delivery against other considerations, e.g. balancing affordable/family housing requirements against facilitating what will be high levels of housing delivery; the extent to which low density housing in areas with high public transport accessibility are considered sustainable in the long term; and safeguarding and providing existing infrastructure and non-residential uses against the need to meet housing targets."

A very angry resident said...

Yes there should be involvement of local residents organisations and long term committed residents who feel very frustrated and aghast at what is going on in Wembley and what is going on within Brent Council te it's massive overdevelopment. It looks as if Brent Council's tesponce to having it pointed out to them that favoured and envisaged developments do not comply with the local plan is to change the local plan to fit what the developers want!!!!