On the 10th February, Cllr Baggott, Leader of the Conservative Group and Leader of the Council, tabled a motion at the full council meeting recommending that the submitted Local Plan is withdrawn.
His motion is as follows.
His motion is as follows.
The motion was duly passed by a count of 24 votes. We will post the voting record here in due course.
This is a significant win for resident power. Barely 2 weeks ago, on the 27 January, modifications to the submitted Local Plan were heading towards yet another public consultation and into the hands of the Planning Inspector for a final decision later this year. An outcome that carried huge risks and uncertainty. The complete U-turn by the current administration, who were in favour of the modifications to the base Local Plan, came as a surprise but was greatly welcomed.
Since 2014 we have been campaigning for the Green Belt to be saved from excessive housing development. It has been the primary reason for why BAG exists. So it is gratifying that the protection of the Green Belt is at the heart of the withdrawal justification. Someone finally listened to our arguments!
What happens next is still unclear. It could be a few more weeks before the withdrawal is ratified and final. After that, work will need to start on a revised new Local Plan and we will be doing all we can to ensure that residents are positively involved in that process, as we were largely ignored and dictated to in the past. That cannot be allowed to happened again. All residents will get a chance to comment as the revised Local Plan will have to go through public consultation as the mandated process dictates.
We don’t yet know what the next iteration of the Local Plan will look like but it can’t be any worse than what was being proposed and supported before. Until then the existing Local Plan will continue to protect our Green Belt from wanton developer attack, as it has done for years.
Since 2014 we have been campaigning for the Green Belt to be saved from excessive housing development. It has been the primary reason for why BAG exists. So it is gratifying that the protection of the Green Belt is at the heart of the withdrawal justification. Someone finally listened to our arguments!
What happens next is still unclear. It could be a few more weeks before the withdrawal is ratified and final. After that, work will need to start on a revised new Local Plan and we will be doing all we can to ensure that residents are positively involved in that process, as we were largely ignored and dictated to in the past. That cannot be allowed to happened again. All residents will get a chance to comment as the revised Local Plan will have to go through public consultation as the mandated process dictates.
We don’t yet know what the next iteration of the Local Plan will look like but it can’t be any worse than what was being proposed and supported before. Until then the existing Local Plan will continue to protect our Green Belt from wanton developer attack, as it has done for years.
For now, we have just one message for the council and the current administration, and that is for them to heed a much repeated comment from the outgoing Minister for Housing, Christopher Pincher. In fact he used such words in a letter to John Baron MP regarding the Basildon Local Plan very recently.
“it is important to stress the standard method is only the first step in the current local plan process – the numbers generated for an area’s housing need will not necessarily be the same as their ultimate targets. That’s because councils will take into account various constraints in their areas, including protecting their Green Belt and environmentally significant sites. Nor does it dictate where those homes should go. Both are important aspects of the system which rest with local councillors to determine.”
Its very simple, get the number right, get the locations right, protect the Green Belt.
We would like to thank all residents for supporting us, lobbying our elected representatives, protesting and generally being noisy!
We have shown that residents can make a difference.
The fight continues. But hopefully on our terms this time.
We would like to thank all residents for supporting us, lobbying our elected representatives, protesting and generally being noisy!
We have shown that residents can make a difference.
The fight continues. But hopefully on our terms this time.
