Cabinet Member: Dafydd Meurig
To consider the report of the Head of Environment
Minutes:
A report was
submitted by the Senior Planning Manager, raising awareness of the development
of the above guidance before the Joint Planning Policy Committee made a
decision on the suitability of adopting it on 23.5.19. A request was made for the Scrutiny Committee
to submit observations on the guidance to the Policy Committee.
The members were
reminded that the scrutiny working group, which was investigating the
consultation process on the draft Supplementary Planning Guidance (SPG) on behalf of the Scrutiny Committee, had
submitted observations and recommendations to the Committee, which, in turn,
had been submitted to the Policy Committee for consideration before the
Guidance was published for public consultation.
The Chair of the
Scrutiny Working Group highlighted his wish to refuse the report as the
suggestions of the working group had been disregarded. He also noted, following the 10th Edition of
the Planning Policy, that the changes affecting the SPG needed to be
considered. He suggested that the
current SPG should continue to be used until 2020 and for experts to be
appointed to seek to evidence the impact of the guidance and for adaptations to
be drawn up by August 2020. He expressed
that the discussions had been difficult and had been prevented, and that the
working group had not been given a fair hearing.
Councillor Aled Evans (a member of the scrutiny working group) reiterated
that the guidance needed to be strong and valuable and he questioned its worth
in its current form.
In response to the comments, the Monitoring Officer noted that the report
included observations following the public consultation, with a request for further
comments from the Committee. Refusing
the report would lead to resubmitting previous comments, and this would be
inappropriate. He noted that what was
being requested was difficult to achieve as it would mean a change in
policy. He emphasised that the
Guidance could not change the policy, and that the purpose of the Guidance was
to offer a further explanation and guidance in relation to the implementation
of the policy. He highlighted that the
thresholds in terms of when it was required to ask for a linguistic
assessment/statement had been set out in the wording of the policy
In response to the
observations, the Senior Planning and Public Protection Manager noted that the
working group opposed to the policy and that the guidance was an attempt to say
how to uphold and interpret the policy.
He reiterated that the allegation of 'preventing a discussion' and not
listening was unfair. He noted that the
process of collaborating with the Scrutiny Committee, the Scrutiny Working
Group and Anglesey Scrutiny Committee had been long and open and that the
observations of the Working Group or Scrutiny Committee had not been
disregarded. He highlighted that no
evidence had been received to prove that the policy did not work and he said
that it was being monitored annually. He
expressed that the contribution of the working group had been valuable and that
some changes had been made following the comments received, e.g. external
planning and language experts had been appointed to evaluate the value of the guidance. He reiterated that there was an opportunity
for further comments before the Policy Committee met to discuss it further on
23.05.19.
Councillor Aled Evans
questioned the need for the guidance if no language assessment was necessary
for sites already designated in the Local Development Plan and for that small
number if the 'need' had changed. In
response, the monitoring officer accepted the member's frustration and noted
that the legislation would need to be changed to address this, with political
pressure and appropriate evidence.
From the response, it
was asked how statistics and evidence could be gathered and what was the way
forward. It was also asked whether
evidence existed for the past two years and whether a mechanism was in place to
gather evidence.
In response, the Senior
Planning and Public Protection Manager noted that statistics from the census
was used, along with information on the growth of households / the
population. He also highlighted that the
unit was working with language officers.
He also noted that
there was a duty on the Council to submit an Annual Monitoring Report regarding
the Plan to the Government during October.
It was highlighted that the Annual Monitoring Report included an analysis
of how the Plan was being implemented, and was based on 69 monitoring
indicators identified in the Plan. Some
of these indicators related specifically to linguistic matters and the
implementation of Strategic Policy 1.
The Chair expressed his
disappointment as there was no evidence gathering mechanism in place and that
this was a weakness in the process.
The Chair of the
Working Group expressed the need for a strong and effective guidance to protect
the language in line with the Cabinet Member's statement in July 2017. He noted that the working group had held a
number of meetings and a number of the invitees had expressed their concern as
not enough was being done to protect the language. He emphasised the need to seek a public
consultation on every application of 10 or more houses (5 in a rural area) -
this did not appear difficult as there was a need to consult on other matters
in any case.
The Chair expressed his
disappointment that the guidance could not be strengthened, however, he noted the
need to submit further observations to the Joint Planning Policy Committee.
The Monitoring Officer
noted that there was an opportunity to submit the observations to the Joint
Planning Policy Committee and he suggested that the working group should submit
observations / express concerns on behalf of the Scrutiny Committee.
RESOLVED to accept the report and for the scrutiny
working group to submit observations on behalf of the Scrutiny Committee to the
Joint Planning Policy Unit.
Supporting documents: