News and Views Special

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The adopted Peterborough Local Plan

The current Peterborough Local Plan was adopted by resolution of Peterborough City Council on 24 July 2019.

All the documents relating to this Local Plan can be accessed on the City Council website.

The Peterborough Local Plan contains the most appropriate planning policies for the growth and regeneration of Peterborough and the surrounding villages up to 2036.

Within this document you will find a vision for what Peterborough could be like in 2036. There are also some objectives to explain what is trying to be achieved and policies setting out what and how much development should take place and the sites required to meet this growth.

The Society made a number of comments, objections and recommendations during the consultation period and some of these are reflected in changes made to the earlier version of the Plan. We cannot take full credit for all of these but axamples of changes made include; deletion of large residential and employment allocation on land north of Castor, inclusion of specific site for a university campus on the Embankment and more weight to be given to views of the Cathedral in development proposals.

The Next Local Plan.

All Adopted Local Plans have, by law, to be kept up-to-date. At present the future is somewhat uncertain as the Government propose a radical overhaul of the planning system in England and Wales.

A consultation White Paper was published in August 2020 and the period for responses to it ended on 30th October. The changes proposed are radical and too complex to cover. Suffice to say that they will have serious consequences for many of us involving; local influence and democratic control of development; location and quality of development and; speed in the delivery of decisions by local authorities.

The document ‘Planning for the Future’ is available for download.

The Society’s view was expressed by adding its name in support of a letter published in the Daily Telegraph in September 2020, which appears below.

Sir

LOCAL BUILDING WISHES

Covid-19 has demonstrated the incredible spirit of communities uniting to support each other and fight this deadly virus. It should be they who drive the national recovery, with the power and voice to shape their local area so that it is a place in which they are proud to live, work and enjoy their time, and where everyone has an opportunity to reach their full potential.

People want their local area to have high-quality, affordable homes built in the right places, supported by the right infrastructure, providing enough schools, promoting greener travel and tackling climate change. This can only be achieved through a local planning system with public participation at its heart, enabling councils to make places resilient, prosperous and capable of meeting the needs of their communities. It means beautiful areas and better homes.

We urge the UK Government to keep planning in England local. Any suggestion that planning is a barrier to house-building is a myth. Nine in 10 planning applications are approved by councils, while more than a million homes given planning permission in the last decade have not yet been built.

Taking further planning powers away from communities and councils will only deprive them of the ability to define the area they live in and know best. It risks giving developers the freedom to ride roughshod over local areas.

If the country is to come back stronger from Covid-19 then local communities must be at the heart of the recovery.

Signed by large number of representatives of organisations such as; Civic Voice, RIBA, TCPA, RTPI, Local Govt Association, County and District Councils’ Networks, CPRE, Chartered Inst. Housing.

Article written by committee member Kem Mehmed - November 2020

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content last reviewed 18 November 2020 by KM; tidy up PB 10 March 2021