Minutes:
Councillor Knaggs, Leader of the Council, submitted the following statement, which was circulated to Members during the course of the meeting:
“At the start of a new year, it is right to welcome the award of an MBE to Pauline Foster of Thixendale for community service, and to celebrate the success of Ryedale businesses in winning tourism awards and in the short-listing for the Countryside Alliance awards for rural life, business and heritage. This is testimony to the vitality of Ryedale people and it is our job to support and encourage that vitality.
The new year also follows the most severe weather for many years. After two bad winters on the trot, it may be that winter weather is reverting, after many mild winters, to what was normal in the mid 20th century. Perhaps we should be thinking about what winter resilience means for this Council? Public conveniences have suffered. After snow often comes flooding, which is a continuing concern. The flood mitigation grants will help but there are areas of repeated localised flooding, such as the Manor Vale area of Kirkbymoorside, which deserve our attention. In the week beginning 4 March there will be a large-scale emergency flood exercise, Exercise Watermark, to test the ability to cope with severe flooding. It seems woefully under-publicised, particularly as it is intended for parish councils, community groups and business as much as for larger public bodies. I hope we as a council are taking a lead in encouraging groups to participate in this exercise.
Flooding is just one potential demand on the council’s capital. In 2011, as we look at what we can do to save libraries across the district, to save the livestock market, to save Malton Hospital (which I think will be a huge challenge for Ryedale) and all the other things we want to do, it will become clear that we do NOT have a bottomless pit of capital and there will be difficult decisions ahead about priorities.
In the next cycle of meetings, the Commissioning Board is due to complete the first major commissioning project, on tourism, and to look at housing-related issues such as the impact of changes in housing finance, and the roles of the rural housing enabler and the housing development officer. The Policy Committee will have its hands full with the council’s budget, but there will also be a revised safeguarding policy to consider including a new adult policy. There will also be some planning policy issues and it is because of the need to timetable those issues against the background of continuing vulnerability to speculative applications outside development limits that this statement appears later than normal. I have had detailed discussions with officers in the last few days, reflecting the concerns that members have, which reached a conclusion yesterday evening. It goes without saying that everything will be subject to the will of council.
With 2500 consultation responses being analysed, it is clear that the publication draft of the core strategy will not come to council before the May elections. Selby took 11 months to get from draft LDF to publication version. In any case I suggest to members that any appearance of rushing something through just before an election should be avoided. We have been able to use the evidence gained through the core strategy process to, for example, give consent for a large business development at York Road, Malton and a large housing development at Westfield Nurseries, Norton, to start on site this spring. Together these will generate 65 new affordable homes and contributions of £1.4million towards road improvements, public open space, education and affordable housing. In February the Policy Committee will consider the “Conservation Deficit” approach put forward by Castle Howard; I believe this is an area of uncertainty that can be resolved. At full council in March, we will be asked to agree a methodology to be used for site selection. Not only will this be used to select sites as we move beyond the core strategy, it will also be used to help determine applications outside the old development limits, until the Development as a whole is approved. There are no perfect answers to what remains, whatever Eric Pickles may be saying, is a monstrous bureaucratic obstacle course, but this goes some way towards keeping the planning authority in control of development in Ryedale.”
Councillor Andrews asked the following questions:
1. “ Is Councillor Knaggs saying that the only way of allocating new sites is through the LDF?”
2. “Is he saying that is it not possible for a Council to top up the 5 year supply without going through the LDF process?”
3. “If building completion rates are lower than 200 houses per annum, is it not possible to use a lower building rate for determining the 5 year supply?”
4. “If that is not possible, how is that councils in the south of England have been able to resist building rates imposed on them by the RSS and the Secretary of State has pledged his support for them?”
Councillor Knaggs responded firstly on the point about the south of England resisting targets imposed by the RSS and pointed out that the target of 200 was not imposed on the Council but was, in fact, agreed by the Council.
With regard to the point about the possibility of the Council using a lower building rate for determining the 5 year supply, Councillor Knaggs pointed out that members have had a briefing note on this, which he did not propose to repeat. There had to be a basis for the 200 per year that was selected and this was in the evidence compiled for the original spatial strategy He pointed out that, whilst it could be argued that since the local plan was based on the county structure plan target of 180 per annum that figure could be used, it would not alter the fact that the shortfall would increase every time a new house was built. This could not be avoided because the local plan is out of date. He said that we have run out of sites that will be developed in next 5 years and altering the target would not help.
With regard to questions 1 and 2 about allocating new sites without going through the LDF process, Councillor Knaggs repeated what officers had said many times that “you cannot make things stick unless you have been through a proper process of consultation”.
He considered that the best solution that was available was to agree the criteria for selecting new sites and considering speculative applications in the period that would elapse until the development plan is agreed. He pointed out that the public were entitled to their say and we had to consider what they said.