Agenda and minutes

Members will be invited to elect a Chair for the meeting.

Councillor Pantling was elected as Chair for the meeting.

Apologies for absence were received from Councillor Joshi, Councillor Westley, Janet McKenna, Martin Samuels and Sophie Maltby.

It was also noted that Councillor Batool and Councillor Dr Moore would need to leave the meeting early due to other commitments.

Members will be asked to declare any pecuniary or other interests they may have in the business on the agenda.

Members were asked to declare any pecuniary or other interests they may have in the business on the agenda.

There were no declarations of interest.

The Director of Planning, Development and Transportation submits a report which outlines the main strategies and proposals of the submission for the City of Leicester Local Plan for public consultation in November 2022.

A presentation will also be made at the meeting covering the report and related details.

Members are invited to participate and contribute to the consideration of this item.

The Director of Planning, Development and Transportation submitted a report outlining the main strategies and proposals of the submission for the City of Leicester Local Plan for public consultation in November 2022.

The Chair noted that this was a joint meeting of the Adult Social Care Scrutiny Commission, the Children Young People and Education Scrutiny Commission and the Health and Wellbeing Scrutiny Commission convened specially to scrutinise this item and members from all three commissions were invited equally to contribute to the discussion.

The Chair asked members to restrict their questions to the terms of reference of the three commissions and thanked those that had submitted any questions in advance which officers would attempt to answer as part of the presentation.

Grant Butterworth Head of Planning introduced the report and presented an overview of the background and details of the current position since the last consultation and the processes being followed to bring matters to scrutiny before proceeding to Full Council in October.

During the presentation it was noted that:

·         The final stage of public consultation (subject to Council approval) would begin in November 2022, that would be the final consultation before the local plan was submitted to the independent planning inspectorate for an examination in public (EIP) early next year.

·         The local plan covered the period 2020 to 2036 and sought to meet the need for additional housing, jobs, retail, and leisure by allocating sites for development but also protecting important sites such as those with heritage value. 

·         The local plan also set out a range of policies that would guide decisions on planning applications and sought to protect the environment and balance with economic and social objectives too.

·         The local plan would need to be evidenced as viable and deliverable.

·         The previous Regulation 18 Local Plan consultation and the revisions to the plan now were in the context of consideration given to responses made at that stage.

·         At the conclusion of the previous stage the government had increased targets and issued a new standard method of calculating housing need.

In terms of housing need for the city, that was now 39,424 dwellings, an increase of 35% since the last consultation. This was a challenging increase that had required substantial partnership work with districts to meet that increase in targets. It was noted that agreement was being sought on a Statement of Common Ground on the redistribution of unmet housing need as well as finding areas for employment land within Leicester and Leicestershire.

Regarding housing supply, the full list of the strategic sites and other sites allocated for housing were appended to the report and it was noted there had been a net reduction of 23 sites from the local plan since the Regulation 18 version.

Members’ attention was drawn to the key strategies and policies included in the Regulation 19 local plan, the work that had gone in to fulfilling those and the evidence reworked to make those fit for purpose: e.g., Climate Change included air quality,  ...  view the full minutes text for item 4.

None notified.

The meeting closed at 18:40 hours