Agenda item

            The Board considered a report of the Strategic Director, Environment seeking the Board’s approval of the further ‘saving’ of policies from the Halton Unitary Development Plan (UDP) as part of the ‘Development Plan’.

            With the adoption of the Planning and Compulsory Purchase Act in September 2004, the system of old style plans was abolished. The 2004 Regulations which accompanied this Act, allowed the adopted Halton UDP to be automatically saved for a period of three years from either the date of commencement of Section 28^th September 2004 or the date the plan was adopted, whichever was the latter. The UDP was adopted on 7^th April 2005, therefore ‘old’ policies were automatically saved until 6^th April 2008. The Act required authorities to apply to the Secretary of State (via the Government Office) to issue a direction, if it became necessary to save specified policies beyond this three year period. This must be done six months prior to 6^th April 2008 in Halton’s case i.e. by 6^th October 2007.

            It was noted that the Halton Local Development Framework (LDF) was intended to replace the UDP. However, given the time taken to produce the documents contained within the LDF it would be necessary to continue to save many of the ‘old’ policies within the UDP for a number of years, whilst these LDF documents were being prepared.

            This situation meant that the Council would have to make a request, to the Secretary of State, that a number of the ‘old’ adopted UDP policies were automatically saved beyond the automatic three years.

            In addition it was noted that the Government would take compliance with a number of criteria, which were outlined within the report, into account when considering extensions to the UDP.  Officers had analysed all UDP policies against these criteria and had produced two tables as a result detailing those policies that were intended to be requested as saved and those that were proposed not to be saved beyond the automatic three years.

            RESOLVED: That

(1)               Policies listed within Appendix 1 are submitted to the Government Office for the North West (acting on behalf of the Secretary of State) with a request that they are ‘saved’ as part of the ‘Development Plan’ for Halton beyond the expiry of the automatic three year period from adoption of the Halton UDP;

(2)               Policies listed within Appendix 2 are submitted to the Government Office for the North West (acting on behalf of the Secretary of State) with a request that they are no longer maintained as part of the ‘Development Plan’ for Halton beyond the expiry of the automatic three year period from adoption of the Halton UDP;

(3)               The Operational Director (Environmental & Regulatory Services) in consultation with the Executive Board Member for Planning, Transportation, Regeneration and Renewal be authorised to make any changes to this document as required by the Government Office for the North West;

(4)               Further editorial and technical changes and/or correction of printing errors that do not affect the content be agreed by the Operational Director – Environmental & Regulatory Services before the document is published; and

(5)               The importance of replacing ‘saved policies’ with a new style Local Development Framework, starting with the progression of the Halton Core Strategy, is acknowledged.