Agenda item

Annual Monitoring Report 5 (Appendix 1) was accepted and it was agreed to present it to the Government by the end of October 2023.

The report was submitted by Cllr Dafydd Meurig

DECISION

Annual Monitoring Report 5 (Appendix 1) was accepted and it was agreed to present it to the Government by the end of October 2023.

DISCUSSION

Members were reminded that this was the fifth annual report that had been submitted as part of the Local Development Plan. It was noted that the current Plan would continue until 2025/26. It was detailed that there was a statutory requirement to report to the Government annually on the Plan's progress and this would happen by the end of October should the report be approved by the Cabinet.

It was reported that there had been major changes to the flow of the Plan since the last annual report. It was confirmed that the arrangement of collaborating on the Plan with Anglesey had come to an end and Cyngor Gwynedd had now established a Planning Policy Working Group of 15 members to undertake this work. It was confirmed that the observations of the Working Group had been included in the report.

It was explained that traffic light indicators were being used to monitor the effectiveness of policies and to give an overview of the Plan's performance. It was confirmed that:

·       33 policies contributed towards achieving the Plan's objectives and performed in accordance with, or better than, expectations - green indicator.

·       21 policies were not being achieved as anticipated (but this did not lead to concerns regarding policy implementation) - amber indicator.

·       5 policies did not provide expected results (and there were resulting concerns regarding policy implementation) - red indicator.

It was ensured that any policy that came under the red indicator received consideration when proceeding with the Plan. It was confirmed that 11 policies had been achieved and were not included in any indicator.

It was noted that planning permission had been granted for 315 new residential units during the 2022/23 year, and 298 of them had been completed. It was detailed that 122 of these were affordable units. It was reported that this was 41% of all units completed within the year, which was higher than the expected target. It was considered that units were given 'affordable units' status due to restrictions, size and locations and, therefore, it was inevitable that all units built by the Council would not receive this status.

It was explained that Indicator D21 set targets to address potential renewable energy resources identified in the Plan. It was reminded that it had been expected for 50% of this to be addressed by 2021. It was recognised that this target had not been met thus far due to the shortage of the number of applications received as part of this plan to date. It was also considered that several renewable energy projects had been located on Anglesey and, therefore, targets would need to be amended. It was explained that a Planning Policy Working Group had identified this deficit as a weakness and wished to restore the situation.

It was recognised that Cyngor Gwynedd had similar plans with the National Park. It was detailed that the relationship between both authorities was strong. However, it was noted that it was not possible to merge plans with the Park as it was an independent authority, as well as the fact that part of its area was located within the territory of Conwy County Borough Council.