Issue - decisions

In accordance with Procedure Rule 9.3 Mr Jaques of Challock Parish Council spoke on this item. He said that although it had been discussed at the public consultation meeting in October 2018, there was still ambiguity where Challock fitted in to Local Plan Policies HOU3a & HOU5 under the modifications. The impact of HOU5 had not been made clear to the majority of parishioners and the Parish Council. It was only through a meeting with the Council’s Principal Policy Planner that the possible effects of the original confines when applying the HOU5 policy had been demonstrated and become more evident. He said that the Parish Council was disappointed that it had missed the opportunity to challenge the allocation of HOU5. To continue with the original confines they would have best been suited to HOU3a only. He considered that the whole process since the Cabinet had approved the village confines in 2015 had declined into disappointment with changes to the Local Plan omission sites and then the modifications which had in fact altered what the confines project set out to do. Now that Challock had been allocated HOU3a & HOU5 the Parish Council was still concerned that they may be open to further large scale development and hoped that the new agreed village confines map, which had made the line tighter, would limit this and protect their green spaces.

The Portfolio Holder thanked Mr Jaques for attending and for his comments. He said that the focus of this particular exercise had been to update the village envelope map. On the wider issue of Local Plan Policies these had obviously moved on greatly since 2015 with the development of the new Ashford Local Plan which had been discussed and examined at length over a number of years. The revised village envelope maps took account of those polices and the National Planning Policy Framework and would assist greatly with the protection of the village as requested by Mr Jaques and the Parish Council. Better and more clearly defining the confines of villages would allow for some small organic growth, and produce clear guidance when considering planning applications that came forward. Both Officers and Members were cognisant of the distinct details of both Polices HOU3a and HOU5 and he hoped that would give all involved some reassurance.

The Portfolio Holder then introduced the report which proposed a village envelope for Challock (as outlined at Map 1 in the report). As part of the process, Officers had been engaged with Challock Parish Council and they supported the map being presented. If endorsed by the Cabinet, the map would be used for the purposes of decision making on relevant planning applications in and around Challock.

Resolved:

That    (i)         the Challock village envelope boundary (Map 1 in the report) be           adopted as informal guidance for development management          purposes and in doing so supersede the 2014 Challock village   envelope (Map 2 in the report).

(ii)        authority be delegated to the Head of Planning and Development and the Spatial Planning Manager, following consultation with the Portfolio Holder for Planning and Development, to amend, where relevant, a village envelope boundary to account for the construction of new development.