Neighbourhood development plans,
the referendum
and after
This blog discusses the issues raised from the
experience of drawing up a Neighbourhood Development
Plan and putting it to examination and referendum
‘material consideration’, and it would
be reasonable
for a decision-maker to give substantial
weight to
comments based on the substantial
evidence base
represented by a draft NDP even if ‘the
people’ had
not yet formally endorsed it.
A DCLG official has also agreed that it
would be
reasonable in following section 38(6)
for a decision maker
to give substantial weight to an NDP
based on
substantial evidence, even if it failed
its referendum.
Parish Council representations must be
given
weight whether there is an NDP in
preparation or
not. It would be perverse to give less
and not more
weight to representations based on
evidence
collected from the local population over
a number of
years and through considerable expense
in time and
money, just because of a failure to
secure the
majority vote at a referendum. Such a
failure could
be due to opposition to a single
controversial
proposal or policy.
In these circumstances, asking, as the
current
regulations require, whether the plan
should be
‘used to help in making decisions’ is
pointless, as
the plan must be taken into account
whatever the
result of the referendum.
Given that the effect of an NDP
receiving a simple
majority vote is that it becomes the ‘development
plan’ for the neighbourhood area for the
purposes of
section 38(6), this should have been the
question
put in the referendum. If this is too
legalistic for the
voters to understand, then the question
could relate
to another real effect of a ‘yes’ vote –
whether more
weight should be given to the NDP than
the Local
Plan covering the same area. However, in
order to
cast a vote on this question, it would
reasonably be
necessary for the electorate to know the
contents
of the relevant Local Plan and be able
to compare
its effect against the possible effect
of the NDP (at
least one honest villager spoiled their
voting paper,
being unable to make this comparison).
Over 1,000 NDPs are in preparation and
over 50
have received support at referendum. It
is not yet
known how many such plans have been
tested at
committee or appeal in the determination
of
applications by local planning
authorities or the
Secretary of State. However, in the
knowledge that
very few people would have been either
able or
willing to read, understand and compare
an NDP
with the relevant Local Plan, it might
be reasonable
(in silent defiance of the regulations)
in the exercise
of their judgement for a decision-maker
to give little
or no more weight to a Neighbourhood
Plan that got
its majority than to one that did not.
In my village about 30% of those entitled
to vote
supported the NDP without, I would
suggest,
carrying out the relevant comparison but
as a show
of solidarity with those people who had
put the
time and effort into the preparation of
the plan. This
does not appear to be a good or
sufficient reason to
raise a plan prepared by lay volunteers
to the status
of the ‘development plan’ in
substitution for a Local
Plan prepared by professionals. It will
be very
interesting to see the feedback from
professional
planners when they have had experience
of giving
development plan status to NDP policies.
Without very close supervision over the
preparation of NDPs in a way that
preserves the
spirit of ‘localism’, planning officers
are likely to find
themselves trying to apply policies
which are
insufficiently precise, prescriptive or
proscriptive to
form a sound and reasonable basis for
decision making
in accordance with section 38(6).
Notes
1 D. Lock: ‘CMK Business Neighbourhood Plan megaballots’.
Town & Country Planning, 2015, Vol. 84, Feb.,
58-60
2 Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for
Communities and Local Government Penny Mordaunt,
reported in Hansard, 4 Mar. 2015, Column 360WH.
www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm201415/
cmhansrd/cm150304/halltext/150304h0002.htm#
15030472000340
3 Section 38(6) states: ‘If regard is to be had to the
development plan for the purpose of any determination
to be made under the planning Acts the determination
must be made in accordance with the plan unless
material considerations indicate otherwise.’
184 Town & Country Planning April 2015