Councillors were told last night that the District Council’s Planning Policy Team have been short-listed for the Royal Town Planning Institute’s 2015 awards for Planning Excellence – Local Authority Planning Team of the Year! (These are planning officers not councillors.)
To quote from the Institute’s website:
Rochford District is home to significant constraints to development, but at the same time significant demand for additional development. The Council has met this challenge head on through the plan-making process, putting in place a suite of planning documents ? successfully taking four Development Plan Documents through the examination process to adoption in the last 12 months; with a further two Area Action Plans at an advanced stage in the process ? to ensure development needs are met sustainably.
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These plans follow on from the strategic approach put in place through the Core Strategy, which was adopted in 2011, maximising the efficient use of brownfield opportunities and town centre redevelopment through the Area Action Plans; and making difficult decisions for the long-term benefit of the District through the allocation of greenfield sites when it became clear that the amount of suitable brownfield land was insufficient to meet need.
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The Local Planning Authority have sought to take the local community with them through this process, explaining the reasons why additional development was required and seeking to account for people’s views on how, where and when development should be implemented.
The decisions taken on the plan are the responsibility of councillors, not officers. Even so, some people will be a tad surprised that RDC has one of the top 6 planning policy teams in the whole country…. and especially surprised by the line “The Local Planning Authority have sought to take the local community with them through this process.”
It’s not April fools is it?
A truly stunning manipulation of the facts – you have to admire their ability to talk it up
and get nominated , let’s hope someone mentions the elected Councillors were not so impressed and voted down the first planning application 23-10……..
If they are among the best I hate to think what he worst are like
I note the bit about “maximising the efficient use of brownfield opportunities”
Is that why they refused to include the two sites put forward by Rawreth Parish Council in the centre of the village which could have accomodated a couple of hundred houses and relieved the necessity of grabbing virgin greenfield land?