Transcript

We have in the room three councilors. My name is Ross Wike and I have with me Bill Revens, Councillor Richard Wilkins, Councillor Dixie Dart. In addition, there are a number of officers and some members of the public, so welcome everyone. Today's meeting will be run as a hybrid with people online and I welcome everyone with us who are online. Just to remind people that this is a decision-making body of the executive of the council and then for those who will be invited to speak will either be in the room and also online, but the two decision makers will be the members of the executive of the council who will be voting. And even when you speak online, please identify yourself quite clearly and in the room in the normal way raise your hand in English to speak. Just to get all of the advice, the meeting will be included and the agenda and papers are available online as well as individuals in the room who will be looking at the papers online. So can you please refer to the page numbers in the published track so that everyone can find the appropriate information. Thank you. I think that's the end of the public notices and shall we move on to item 1, the employees' drug absence, on this meeting and I believe we have done. Thank you. Minutes of the previous meeting of the 14th April February. These have been circulated and could I ask if there are any amendments and changes? If not, could I have a composer and a second virtual adopt? Thank you Councillor Wilkins and Councillor Roachins. Thank you. Right, we'll move then on to declarations of interest and there are some listings near the membership of the various transgenders by the executives here today. Otherwise we'll move on. My apologies Councillor Dutch. Thank you Chair. I think I should probably do her an interest in as much as I've been involved with Kingston's very neighbourhood in writing and reviewing it. That's really bad. We'll then move on to item 4, the public question time this afternoon and we have three speakers with questions. The first one is David Ridgewell talking about BCIP. Thank you Chair. I hope you can hear me from glorious London. So my questions really are around the bus service improvement plan. I mean I fully support it, let's be fair as a member of the advisory board. But I just want to make sure that we hit the delivery targets on reopening Taunton bus station and that is at the forefront of our delivery and we've got a clear delivery framework for it and also the bus priority measures in Taunton. I mean the reason I'm in Londondale was at a DFT conference and obviously we were going to go through BCIPs today. That's not part of it but what we are looking at now is a possible spending review, Chair, for November which is going to be very important for Somerset and the West Country and very important for Somerset Council. So I just want to make sure that the BCIP, everything we are wishing for to improve our network including the bus stations in the county and particularly Yeoville but also our bus priorities and our bus shelters and our plan is fully up to speed because we may find it won't just be a one year supplement. I'm now hearing it could be four. So before we submit it let's just make sure that we've got a clear indication of our ambition for Somerset and our links with the South West and also that we're working closely particularly with Devon, Dorset, the West of England Combined Authority, the northern part of Somerset, the North Somerset and Bains and also with Wiltshire and Bournemouth Heights Church and surrounding Cancisca and Mississippi. So that's really my point. I won't commit but I think we need to make sure that the plan is really ready to go because we may now be into a different board game with a four year spending amount of money for buses, a public transport in Somerset and the wider South West. Thank you. Thank you very much indeed for that. We have got some questions if you've already submitted and I will ask the courtroom holder to respond to. But on an agenda note, one of the reasons why we sit here today is because of the eventualities that the time to get on the board considering the future funding could be advanced and so this is very timely. And now I have them now to our portfolio holder Richard who wants to respond to your specific questions. Thank you David for your questions. Firstly, before I continue with the answers to them, I would just say that I struggled to get into the meeting yesterday, a council meeting. I have checked with Democratic Services and they couldn't find you online. They weren't looking for you, so there must have been some difficulty with the link you had. OK, I'll just answer the first question about auto mobility now. And it's still a development phase, so the details are still emerging as we go through the process. The work is due to be completed during the 2020, during 2025 on the subject of annual commission. The date of the opening will be shared once it is there. This second question as part of the consultation for the BSEP 2024 review, we've consulted the bus advisory board, which includes representatives from neighbouring authorities. Officers have also attended the enhanced partnership forums for those neighbouring authorities when BSEP reviews were discussed. At this stage, the review contains very high level ambition and is not a bidding document, as there are no new funds available. We anticipate that further BSEP submission next year, which may require more detailed proposals, and we will ensure we discuss this with the neighbouring authorities where appropriate. And finally, improving public transport infrastructure remains an aspiration within BSEP subject to superior additional funding from the government. At this stage, there is no new BSEP funding available, but we will monitor this, and should the opportunity arise for additional BSEP funding, we will look to do so. I anticipate it. Thank you for that. We now have some questions from Kingston's loan council. And the first speaker I have in front of me is David Strip. Do you want to join the meeting? Thank you. So just in the background of the negative plan, the referendum, the 92% votes in favour and 35% turnout didn't happen by any last names. It reflected the involvement of the community in putting the plan together over a number of years. So the process began with a household survey in 2016 that formed the basis of the 2017 community plan. Kingston recruitment and community partnership was then formed and worked with the parish council to implement the recommendations of the community plan. So a lot of the consultation meetings will be held for the negative plan, resulting plan that you are being asked to make today wholly reflects feedback from Kingston to Mary parish residents. The steering group that helped put the plan together were incredibly well qualified, and that included parish and district councils, members of the community with specific knowledge and skills, and included obviously the Sunset Council with particular knowledge and interest in climate change and flooding. So the key aspects of the plan and the vision, which we'll hear about in a second, on which the plan is based, are firstly to recognise the issues that we face, and that's the imbalance in our housing stock, lack of two, three bedroomed houses, the reducing number of young families, an ageing demographic, and a changing climate. And then secondly, provide a network that you will see in more vision to enhance the place we live and maintain a balanced, vibrant and healthy community. And then thirdly, while protecting and retaining the character of the area, a lot of it sits within also the national landscape. So before any, there has already been activity towards these things, the Kingston community, Kingston to Mary community land trust has been established for affordable housing and working with housing maintenance. We've already seen some progress towards providing for the need for downsizing and all their developments as a result of the housing needs survey. And the act of travel is interesting, and Cat Packer, Kingston area pedestrian cycling campaign, was set up for in the community land to create a safe cycling and pedestrian route to Taunton, and they helped us work on this aspect of the plan. So we're now talking to land owners with a view to the community land trust, acquiring land tools, securing a route to Taunton, safe cycling routes to Taunton. And incidentally, of course, our national landscape, we're also planning to take a feasibility study to continue that route onto the Port of Taunton, possibly on a certain of the person. So as well as the policy of which we will guide planning decisions, there are a number of statements of intent which will guide the parish council in this approach over the coming years, and this will be reflected in an act and plan of field development. So we'd like to thank Pat Rhodes for her guidance. We saw the plans, the first one apparently, to come back from the independent examiner without any queries, so huge thanks to her. So what I would like to say is that I'd like you to follow the wishes of our community in favour of making this plan. Thank you. I'd like to call you from Taunton. David has described the Bath Remington Plan, and the process follows, to achieve a very successful local and national revenue result, 92% voted in favour. I'd like to talk about the vision for the future of the King's of St Mary. The vision he made is that the plan must be developed, taking its inspiration from the various surveys and consultations which took place. The vision therefore reflects the views of the community and their wishes for the future of our parish. The vision focuses upon the following main areas, being the rural parish. King's of St Mary's sits at the foot of the Quadsocks and is separated from Taunton by open countryside. Residents wish to remain living in a rural parish with open countryside, protecting our village, cabinets and the Quadsock Hills from Taunton's urban expansion. The vision also leads to a pair of parishes for the future. By putting the climate in the seat at the forefront of planning decisions, existing and any new housing can be made more resilient to climate change. Housing is another important concern in our community. Residents should be able to spend different stages of their lives within the parish. Honesty development will therefore be welcomed to secure long-term sustainability and prosperity in the parish by meeting identified housing, social and community needs. This will enable the population to be better whilst retaining its rural character and a strong sense of identity will be protected by maintaining a balanced environment in the health of the community. Local services are also very important to our residents. We would like to see residents' basic needs continuing to be met and when necessarily improved. The vision can be summarized as follows. King's and St Mary parish will retain its unique and distinctive rural character by being separate from Taunton. Climate change will be mitigated by developing sympathetically to meet against by housing, social, community and economic needs whilst preserving the heritage, character and natural beauty of our village, cabinets and the surrounding countryside. The vision for the future of King's and St Mary reflects the wishes of our community and has given rise to the planning policies in the neighbourhood of London. By voting in favour of making the plan, you will be helped within the community's vision for the future of our parish to life. The future of our parish is literally in your hands. Please vote in favour at the long end of the plan. Thank you. Thank you, and thank you to you for both of you for coming and speaking about your more liveable plan with the communities vision for the future. I'm very aware of the neighbourhood plans, they've got a lot of effort and commitment from the community, so my congratulations in terms of getting the plan to this stage. neighbourhood plans are a vehicle for communities to shape and influence their area. It's clear that a lot of work goes into neighbourhood plans and the community are being instrumental in shaping your plan, and that is the essence of the neighbourhood plan, it's community vision coming through. And I'm delighted to hear that you're the first neighbourhood plan to come back without need for independent examination process to demand some additional questions and qualifying information. So well done on that, and congratulations to the others who do. It's always encouraging to see the actions of neighbourhood plans and I'm delighted that you are developing something very dear to my heart, and that is with your community land trust, thinking about your pedestrian cycle campaign, and the fact that it may be able to be extended towards North Everton is really good news. We as a council are going to tell them that we want the scenes on set for your walking and cycling community, and delighted to see it is in your action plan. So may I wish you the very best with your action plan, and I hope one day to be able to go down your path, but thank you. Right, I'm going to take the items slightly out of order and go to item 6, if I may, which is actually the making of the Kingston St Mary and Bigelow Plan, and I would like Anne Rose to introduce your report. Thank you very much Chair, thank you members, good afternoon. So before you is a report of the Kingston St Mary neighbourhood development plan, as you already heard, it's a community led planning document which has been produced by Kingston St Mary. That document and its evidence base has been subject to an independent examination in February, following which Somerset Council as the final authority put the plan out to a local referendum which took place in the 7th of May, and as you already heard, 92% of those voting voted in favour of the plan. The position following referendum is that if more than 50% of those voting voted in favour of the plan, then Somerset Council is required to already make that plan on the part of the development plan. There are a very small number of instances where you would not do that, those don't apply in this case. The name of the plan has been through all its regulatory stages. The report before you sets out in more detail the legal compliance combined with the Council's Plan 2023-27 and its policies on social value, health and wellbeing, ecology and climate change, and it was painted in the quality impact assessment as well, and it's a little bit more detail than the report on the law in regards to the neighbourhood planning report before you. The plan itself comprises of 12 policies which have a huge range of things including protecting the local character, climate change, energy hire, rock keepers, green space, dark skies, bit of housing and self and custom build units as well as the live-work units. The plan meets all the legal tests and therefore it is requested that the community, sorry just getting to my recommendation already, the extensive driving transport policy survey committee agrees that the name of the development plan be made as part of the statutory development and be used in determining the planning applications for the Kingston St Mary's main post area which is the parish of Kingston St Mary's. Thank you for that. Any comments? Thank you Chair. I just want to correct something that I said earlier when I contained an interest. I think I used the word 'writing' in the beginning. That's rubbish actually. I made some small contributions. I drank quite a lot of tea and the odd glass of wine and we had a massive number of meetings and revisions and it was very much a kind of strong agency engagement and both Paul Townsend, the chair of Kingston Parish Council and David Sturt Parish Council have put in the most massive amount of work to this and my thanks to them. Thank you. Any further comments? Otherwise can we go to the vote? I was just going to add some more on that. Yes. Thank you. I was particularly repressed amongst a number of the member of that. I think it's quite an exemplary in terms of the way that it is set out. In terms of some of the objectives that it seeks to have, particularly around state availability, around the use of carbon transport and so I'm actually pleased to be working with Site 3 Group at North Eglinton. Hopefully we'll get involved in Camille. Most importantly, I was really impressed by the housing relevance of it. So it's very much wanting to keep a balance of demographics within the village and keep that local housing connectivity there. I'm really welcome and I'm certainly pleased to be here. Thank you. Thank you and do you wish to say something? I should first say in terms of the active travel rates and the intention is that the community land trust will try and secure the land. It might come back to you as a follow-up. Yes, I'm afraid there's anything at all wrong with you having the support of the concept, well and truly, to high amount of gender. Right, if there are no further comments, we have a recommendation in front of us and could I have a proposal and seconder? I'm not sure if we've got it in mind. (inaudible) Yep, thank you. I'm delighted to say your plan is made. And I really do congratulate you and your community on both, not only the Eglinton plan, but in the amount of effort. I know I'm involved in local plans too and I know it is a long journey, but it should help significantly in the years to come as a planning tool to actually give and determine planning applications that we have the views of the community there and quite clearly the actual plan for the future. Thank you. Thank you very much indeed and congratulations. Okay, thank you. Okay, thank you for that. Shall we now return to the main agenda and the item today, item five, one would be the end of the speech, but for once, shall we call it correctly, the past service improvement plan review for 2024 and I invite Natasha Bates to present the paper. Elizabeth Councilman, would you like to say something first? Yes, I'd like to just introduce Natasha and to be set for review because she set our service improvement plan review. There's a lot of work that's gone into this. It's not been an easy document. And it sits rather strangely as a not-so-gooding document, but it also sits as, I believe, as part of our local childhood plan as a sit-alone document in itself, while I hand it to Natasha for its name. It's been rather better than I have. Thank you, Richard. Natasha? Thank you. Thank you for coming to me. I'm just going to say that it was initially a manager for passenger transport and was at council. So, Yates, I'm going to talk to you about the past service improvement plan with ECIP. Just to give you a bit of background, so the original ECIP was produced in 2021 and that was following the announcement of the government's national advisory strategy, First Back Better, and that required all the authorities to produce an ECIP to set out our final mission for public transport within the county and to be for funding at the time. We did our final review in 2022. We wanted to have confirmation of the funding we were getting and then further reviews of the pushing hold by the DFT until it released new guidance. So, that new guidance came out this year and that requires all the authorities to review their original ECIPs and republish them by 12th of June with that this year. It's important to note that this ECIP is not a vision document. There is no new funding and government available at this stage. The ECIP itself has to be reduced and submitted to release the final tranche release of funding for 2024-25. So, that's the funding we know we're already getting and that's already dedicated to the submitting of schemes but to get that funding released we need to submit this review. And the other thing just to note is that the ECIP is inaugurated by strategy. The ECIP is an agreement plan set to allow for aspiration for the future. So, once the local transport plan, which I didn't hear about later, has been completed and set, then the other strategy, such as the bus strategy, will grow immediately from that local transport plan. The DFT, obviously, we're going to look at three key themes in this ECIP. The first one being the baseline figures for some of that to reflect our current position now for 2023-24 compared to 2021 and where it's come from. We also need to set out the improvement programme for 2024-25. So, what we've achieved with the funding will be needed so far and what we're planning to achieve by the end of March-25. And then the final theme is around our ambitions for 2025 and beyond and linking those to the local transport plan. So, just to confirm the process we followed, we have been consulting with our operators within the county and that was with DOW complete. We've consulted with bus users and stakeholders including some of their bus partnerships and then we've taken the feedback from those to the stakeholders and incorporated that into the draft. We took the draft music through the bus and dining board, followed by some debate board and then we joined the board for the content and now bringing it here through the planning and transport certainty for approved content. And then we've got delegation in the report to the head of transportation with a minor amendment to be used to follow this meeting and then finalising the development. So, what you'll notice is the version of the music that you've got in the papers is a Word document, that's currently without a sign and we need to make it a normal professional document. So, we'll generalise that sign with that design. The minor amendment won't change the principles or proposals within the music, it might be just minor tweaks to where required. And once that's distorted that will be submitted to the DFT by the 12th opportunity along with our bus connectivity assessments which is a separate requirement from the DFT to complete the surveys on our connectivity and for both of those are needed to release the next charge by the name. Just to give a quick schedule of documents, so you've got section one which is the vision of the buses in the county and that's related to the local transport plan. Section two covers our current options and we'll be delivering it at the moment. Section three really kind of showcases the achievements we've delivered so far with the visa funding and what we've got planned up until the end of March 2025 with the funding available. And then section four is our ambition for those 25 and beyond. It's really important to note that that is subject to securing additional funding in the future, so that really is our ambition, but we need future funding in order to deliver those proposals. Section five is monitoring and evaluation, so looking at the targets that were set in the 2021 visa. Some of those we weren't able to achieve because we didn't receive the funding we originally did for. We are waiting for further guidance from the DFT around and we're letting targets, but we've been obviously waiting until our time has come down before we review our targets. And then for those of you who may have seen previous versions of the visa, we do have section six in the plan. We've had recent guidance from the DFT in the last few weeks that's asked us to remove section six and instead that's gone into a separate spreadsheet, which you've got an appendix C. So all local authorities have been asked to fill in the same Excel spreadsheet, so I think there's continuity and consistency across the country. Appendix B sets out our indicative costs for the proposals within the visa and our understanding is the Treasury can use the spreadsheets from all the local authorities to review their sending and what budget might be needed for the future of the transport. And at this stage we don't quite know what's going to happen, but it's likely that we'll have to do another review of the visa, possibly 2025, which is then the bidding document second. And then just final thing to say, I mentioned before the word version of the visa being full report. It's with the design team, but they've given us a capital screen shot here to show you kind of how the design would look within the final version of the different people's label, what the visa will look like when it's completed. Great, thank you. Okay, I've got a number of questions, but maybe we can also have some quick answers, or as I'm not happy to kick something off. So I do that on page 32 of the Google, the sunset aims and limits, and the ends start with transport decarbonisation and run through in terms of cost travel and crew coordination, network and in terms of reliability and improved facilities. And while those are absolutely what we hope to be there, I feel there is something very fundamentally missing, and that is the recognition which there is within the document in certain places of the reality of sunset and the necessity to have really good access. And you play it out in several of your styles when you talk about access to collections, access to health, access to the market towns, etc. And there is one intriguing drawing in that, and I'm afraid that I'm going to have to turn in the exact page, for the number of households which don't have cars. And that is quite significant, that they're on probably some of our most fun bus routes, and I don't think that point comes out in the paper either. I look at the 126 bus route going from Wales towards Western, and it goes through some serious patches of no cars, the number of properties without cars. And I think that we could make more of that, because I think that's really a significant factor. The other thing which I think we probably don't make enough of in the document is that in Somerset we have almost double the national rate of needs of young people, not in education or employment. And I suspect from talking to the colleges, who now spend quite a significant sum of money, I was talking to the research from Taunton College, and they spend over £700,000 a year supporting transport for students. But again, I felt that it's frustrating, and we've almost got there, you've got a lot of the evidence, and you've made more comments, but I think we need to be a little bit more hard hitting about the impact of what you're demonstrating. And I've never thought that, A, on the Somerset Innes page we need to talk about reality, and you've got some lovely figures about, I think on page 37, the population in the rural areas, 48% of our population, and so chunky numbers, not a few minutes, this is really, and we're not really addressing it as well as we thought. You referred to a pilot in Somerton, which is fantastic, but I think, again, as if we lose these really chunky issues now, when you get under pressure to produce a hidden document, we may lose them again. So I would very much like to see this within this document. I'm not saying what you've got in there is wrong, but I think we've actually added to it and made the points a lot stronger, because we do need, as a county, as a council, is again to be very best out of our public transport system. But I don't know what other than the street. Councillor, Wilkins, then Councillor Dodge. Councillor Whitson, then Louch. Yes, I think I made some good points there, so like. I think with the first round of piece of funding, we very much look to see how it could improve our situation, if you like. And it's quite imperative that we take the lessons from the first charge and review them to the second charge. But I think the points are very well landed. About the make-up, Somerset has opposed to other councils. We are very particular in the way, in our locations. So I think we should take on board very much, which you said, and try to embed a more specific Somerset-based point, if I could. So, okay, thank you. Thank you, Councillor Dodge. Thanks. I thought this was a really interesting document, and actually I learned lots of it. So I think one of the things I took was really the importance of the fact that the piece in a way touches on all four of the council priorities, which not many of our things do. And that just kind of, it just is a reminder of how important access to transport, public transport, is to all of those strands. So I got a strong message about the importance of its impact, but I also have got an even stronger message about the challenges of doing this and kind of making these changes. And I think that that data that Councillor White was talking about, it really clearly sets out this comparison data for England and Somerset around population in rural areas, population over 65, population density. And funny enough, I took something a bit different around the car ownership on page 40, was that I think 80% of people in the rural areas have got access to two vehicles compared to 76.5% elsewhere. Now, I guess people who live in large cities, some of them might own a car at all because they've got good transport services, but we are incredibly reliant here. And the other thing that I think I wasn't really quite aware of is the map, and I'm not quite sure on which page it is, but it shows, I think there's like red and blue lines and the red lines show the supported funding from the council versus the commercial operators and now I think that's kind of shrunk. So we have got a massive challenge. So my question is actually a kind of what we learned in hindsight, there won't be a kind of a right or wrong answer to this, but I know that the decision was made some time ago, but in terms of trying to affect a hate change to really get that people using the buses and there was a decision to put a quiet bit of the funding into Taunton, that's to a focused strategy and see if we can get people moving with the park and ride and reduced fares and, you know, understandably kind of councils from other areas would not be having that, but the decision was we could make a difference here. How do you think that was the right decision? That's a bit of a nasty kind of question. What's the evidence that that has made a difference? Thank you, Jeff. If I pick up on your comments, I'll ask the wife first and just say that we're very happy to make some amendments to kind of amplify that point around morality, etc. If we work with council members to tailor that, I'd be comfortable with that as an approach. I'm quite happy to have things made. I'm just really anxious that on-page website, which is the fundamental one about sunset aims, we're not explicit enough about morality. Yeah, that leads to be in the agreement. And thank you if we can pick up some of the things that would be more helpful, but I'm happy for that. But I would like to state that the document come back with the amendments and you were going to answer the second question. Oh, we'll have a go. Councillor Lutz, so was it the right decision? I'm not going to do yes or no. I'll focus it on fence. But what we have seen has been increased passenger usage on the network around the Taunton area. So we know that that investment has driven up patronage. It's one of those challenging pieces. You can't do everything everywhere all the time. We've fixed on the amount of money that we have, and we have to think quite carefully about how we try things and how we do things differently. Focusing in one area at a time, at the time we made that decision, was the decision we made. We've now got to think about, okay, how can we take those lessons that we've learned and spread that experience across the chemistry? And we've got to think about how can we take that experience across the chemistry, spread that experience beyond Taunton, spread that into the rural areas, spread that into the places we know where the bus network is struggling. The map that you pointed out, which is Spillits End and the documents, really clearly shows where the council itself is supporting the bus network and where there are commercial services. We would like to drive a lot more of those services into the commercial bracket so that we can then think about how we support other services in the network and grow the network and make it a much more sustainable and much better network to use for people of sunset. We are, as ever, focused on the amount of money we get, and we are, as ever, beholding to government on how much money that they can give us. So, I'm sitting on the fence, I'm sorry.

Okay. Actually, I came for that answer, Gregor. You want to respond to that? Yeah. I will just add in that yes, Taunton is very much focused on one area of the GSA funding, and we've also, as you've seen, focused on a planet around Taunton, which is a much more rural aspect, which would not necessarily be an option considered by a lot of people, but we will, it's early days of the project, so we will try to learn lessons through CAPS, as well as the lessons we're learning at the Taunton project. >> Okay. Thank you. Could I add another thing to this, which maybe I've missed it, but we do need to make sure, because we're trying to be a walking and cycling county, that buses should be able to attain bicycles where possible, and we need to think about if we're getting new fleets, we need to be able to have that permission, because otherwise, it means that the ability to use our paths we've been developing will be limited. Thank you. And it would be great to see that again as an ambition. This is, you talk about being a high-level efficient document, but let's go for what would be the other field, recognizing that funding is always a challenge. Any other thoughts on this? Okay. What's the timescale on this is? So it's by the gene, the date of the submission to the field day. Okay. Very touchingly. Could we perhaps, outside the meeting, send to the members the copy of the revised document with some track changes? That would be great, because I do know that you've got so far here, and just that extra bit could actually make this a lot more of a crunchy document to really articulate the vision, which I think would be very well in places laid out. It just needs making those a bit firmer and harder. Okay. Any other thoughts on this, or can we go to the recommendations where we're being asked to include the content and the also to delegate a priority for the head of transportation to make it in line with the developments? People content for that. Everyone have a proposal and a seconder. Thank you, council members, council workers, your friends. Yeah. Thank you for that. So congratulations to getting it so far, and it'd be great to have a little bit more time for the last minute, but I recognize that we all work to very high deadlines, and I look forward to seeing the amendments, but there's a really interesting inclination in here, and we just need to spell out the consequences of what you put in there. Great. Thank you very much indeed, everyone, and thank you for lots of hard work. No doubt. Thank you. Right. We'll move now on to item 7, under the nexus, local development order, and then James Holbrook. He's going to talk about this. I think he's up there. Thank you very much. I'm sure that this slide is sharing your own money. Fantastic. Good afternoon, my name is James Holbrook. I'm a host in the visual planning policy implementation team, and I'm just presenting an eight slides to introduce the faculty this afternoon. As a bit of a background in relation to this scheme, a local development order was adopted back in 2018 for a period of 15 years. Now, a local development order is a bank that was not full, but isn't used that frequently within the endowment, you've got three line local development orders in place at the moment. The site at nexus, Junction 25, the gravity site here, Bridgewater, and we also have a local development order in place, a small-scale buoyant space within the form of Somerset West and Taunton area. The intention with this scheme is that the local development order has outlined and proposed for a green campus just to the east of the Junction 25. The order is in place to allow for a variety of business uses, so high-end research and development, our policy office space, also some light industrial units, and warehousing. You can see that this image was from the original warning that has been approved for those who are familiar with the area. This section is the H35A, and obviously, there have also been amendments now to the access of the site with the new home amount. This plan just provides a bit of an overview as to how the boss has been separated into six different development areas, and there's a breakdown with some of the uses proposed. These are in the order of magnitude. There is a quantum of development within the order that's been approved, but actually, it gives quite a bit of free reign as to what we can or can't build on that site. There are some restrictions in terms of some of the ancillary uses, such as some of the shopping and drinking establishments, restaurants, and campaigns that are really there to support the wider employment uses, but that's how the site is proposed to be built out. The local development order is in place to enable economic investment within the area. It's got 26 conditions aligned with it. Those 26 conditions mean that the developer, promoter, or agent need to submit funding information to the authority, but it's to ensure compliance with the schedule rather than approval as such. Now, one of these conditions, condition one, actually, it requires the authority to actually take a lead in that high-level and in-person review to take place. So, the scheme is approved in 2018, and the ambulance will be in the fifth year, so in 2023, it will be March 2023 last year. The local planning authority is required to carry out a high-level planning policy review and establish that the local development order is still suitable as it stands and that there haven't been any substantial changes to planning policy in that time. So, the reason we're presenting a report to members this afternoon is that it's twofold. Firstly, to complete the review and restore compliance to condition one of the LDO, and secondly, we're also proposing some rewording to condition one. Firstly, that's to just address some minor type of graphic awareness that was in the original order, but also, secondly, to allow a second additional review period within that condition, just because we are aware that there are wide material considerations that members might also consider in the future in relation to the wider market. But I would emphasize that this original condition was very much worded that it was focused on planning policy and I'll examine that in main as well. This review is very much procedural in nature, so it's not proposing that there are any changes to the scheme as proposed. So, it's not containing any additional consents or permissions, that's a separate exercise. This is purely just assessing whether there have been any fundamental changes in planning policy. And so, following on from that, there's a design guide that has also been involved in this part of the suite of documents that were put forward in 2018, but no elements of that design guide in respect of the site is changing in any way because of this process that we're working through there. So, paper in front of you goes into a lot more detail, but what I'd like to do is just highlight that at a national level, whilst there have been some changes to policy, most likely to be the national planning policy framework, fundamentally it was a material change, new approach that was outlined that we took back in 2018 in relation to this scheme and actually the use of OBOs as it meets most such opportunities, the names and that's filled within your advice, thank you for that. In relation to loan policy and the sunset local plan, Sunset Council will be progressing a new sunset local plan, however, at the moment, though, all of the further information has been published. So, the work that's progressed also with Sunset Western Council, though, became and remain relevant in shaping that new local plan, but again, there haven't been any significant changes since it was originally approved back in 2018. Where there have been some changes relate more to some of the supplementary policy and guidance that have been produced by the authority over the last few years and are specifically made reference to some of the design authority documentation that's been produced, some of the active travel, we've alluded to in previous items as well, and response to the climate emergency, but what we're trying to emphasize within the review is that these changes, whilst they might have meant the review, might have played a slight different approach in terms of the tweeted documents that were put forward as part of the related development back in 2018, they fundamentally change the principle that the development was originally put forward. Lastly, as part of that review, officers did take into account why the material considerations and how across 58 to 66 were grown to those, so we're trying to ensure that the review has been complete and taken back into account as well, but it should be noted that the condition specifically relates to any reference to changes to planning policy family. So we want to be complete in terms of our review, but actually it carries evidence away in terms of providing that condition once. So in relation to the conclusions which I've outlined in the paragraph 64 of the paper, national planning policy has not significantly changed in relation to the use of LEOs. The planning policy has not formally changed since the adoption of the LEO, although it has been, although we have noted that SPD, supplementary planning documentation and guidance, has moved on to some extent since it was approved back in 2018. Therefore, the conclusion that officers have drawn is that changes in policy are being limited in scope and can be seen as potentially affecting how the LEO will review development on the site of the report, rather than questioning the original purpose and intent of the LEO. And lastly, the purpose of the LEO, it was and remains the case that it is to simplify the planning control to encourage growth in the investment and employment opportunities of the next 25, and at this point it is considered that the LEO remains suitable and very good for attention. So, the recommendation put forward within house class 2011 reports are that you agree to the amendment of the working of the Commission 1, to address those biographical errors and to allow all the secondary review periods to take place, and secondly, to sign on review to comply with Option A of the Commission 1, which is to retain the labour development order as it stands. Thank you very much. Thank you, very comprehensive. It's some interesting reading this and I'm heartening that it's done and we're on top of this because this is quite a key area for the report. Any questions or my comments on what is being proposed? Thank you. Just to note that there was permission in this for residential institutions. I saw all the notes in there. I was just wondering what the nature of this was and what that kind of category does and doesn't mean. Thank you. So, I made reference to the approved LEO, which has a constant development within it, and a lot of them don't necessarily have restrictions as to what the floor areas might be. Residential, normal residential institutions, they do actually have a restriction and it can only really be within one block of the site, but it would be a care home, nursing home, current care, despite the institution. Councillor Dodge. I just want to say this seems ever going to be sensible to me and I can't think of a reason to be bullish really. Thank you. And these points are welcome. No, really a little bit large in that. I was just wondering how it sits alongside the proposed 3.8 during all of the schemes. So, it was always originally the intention that I was going to be finding technical elements to the opening scheme, hence why the brand new access has been providing as well. So, that was actually part of the separate planning application. This also came to Council at the time, but it might be the case as we move forward that we might need to revisit how it integrates with the H3 by main parcels whilst they be put on hold at the moment. Thank you. And obviously you already mentioned maximum travel. So, that's interesting. Thank you. The key thing for me in this document is the revision of the word in condition one with the ability to have a number of unique vehicles. And I think that's probably quite important. The development market is quite changing and we've had a lot of pressures on it over the last few years. And so, it will be interesting to see where we are in the years to come on the use of that site and whether we need to look again at the idea. So, I'm more than happy to support an early day's additional review if needed. So, thank you for that. If we have no other questions, then could I have a proposal and a seconder? Council members, Councilor Dart and could I have a show of hands to support the recommendations? Thank you. Thank you very much indeed for all your work in this document. Right. We've completed item seven. We know that the forward plan and I mean when I say welcome, I'm going to introduce it. Thank you. Thank you, Chair. The forward plan which is on page 167 sets out the item of search for the programme to come to the next few meetings of the Executive Assembly Committee. The first thing is the Puritan According Produce Industry, which is a puritan made with a plan. I believe actually that is going to be recommended on board the line, which is that happened by the students. Given that we have an election, another election that day. We've also got a programme to be part of a plan to regulation running, a version of that plan to come back to you about the meeting to go out to publication and the normal plans for the planning goal of the consultation is also due to come and to be out from the review of the minutes of the planning old schedule that we need to get. Really in terms of the board, it's a bit more flexible and there are a couple of main plans which will be coming to the August meeting that's intended to make a plan in which it's going to be six months in review. The progress on the budget plan is also scheduled for that meeting as it's been displayed in the plan. And also the drama of trying to put in a strategy to come together with a position such as FY6, particularly looking at the current position in terms of the allocation of priorities. Thank you for that. Any questions or concerns at this stage? No. So thank you. So very happy to close the meeting and thank you everyone for attending. And I think we can all try. Thank you. Thank you.

• He's mad.