The City Region Board meeting included updates on the Local Growth Plan, countywide strategic plan developments, and the Business Rates Pool and Strategic Economic Development Fund (SEDF). The board was also scheduled to receive a verbal update on the Strategic Economic Development Fund (SEDF) bid pipeline and updates on local area energy planning and the economic dashboard.

Countywide Strategic Plan Developments

The City Region Board was scheduled to receive an update on the current context for spatial planning in Gloucestershire, and to outline the next steps in light of the emerging Planning and Infrastructure Bill.

The report highlights the challenges posed by the timing of legislative changes and local government reorganisation, and emphasises the growing importance of collaborative working across councils, together with an enhanced approach to Duty to Co-operate¹. It also highlights the need for leaders to reflect on and consider the implications for Gloucestershire.

The report notes that the City Region Board reinforced their commitment to collaborative working across Gloucestershire at a meeting on 21 January 2025. This included agreement on the benefits of strategic planning on a countywide basis, building officer capacity, the opportunities of building upon existing relationships on cross boundary matters, working together on a shared evidence base, and fulfilling the duty to co-operate recommendations contained in the Gloucestershire Statement of Common Ground.

The report also provides an update on:

• the status and progress of development plans across Gloucestershire,
• activities undertaken to date on wider spatial planning, and
• the progress of the emerging Planning and Infrastructure Bill, and its relevance within the evolving context of local government reorganisation.

A key activity, reflecting the comments arising from the City Region Board at its meeting on 21 January 2025 regarding the relationship between land-use planning and climate change, was the preparation and delivery of a multi-authority workshop. The workshop, held on 2 April 2025, brought together planning and climate change teams, with support from the Town and Country Planning Association. It resulted in the development of an action plan structured around three core themes: policy, evidence, and skills and training.

A second, more focussed multi-authority workshop was held on 19 June 2025, bringing together Chief and Strategic Planners from across Gloucestershire's seven councils to explore and test strategic thinking on shaping the future direction of spatial planning in the county. The context for the workshop was on leadership planning in the context of Local Government Reorganisation (LGR) and 'thinking like a unitary'. The focus was on:

1. Gaining a clear picture across the county in the context of current status of plans (summarised in section 3 above).
2. What is working well/not working well.
3. Individual drivers from individual councils and priorities from each council.
4. Direction LGR/Devolution/political & leadership expectations.
5. Understanding the emergence of Spatial Development Strategies and Planning and Infrastructure Bill
6. Developing the options
7. Testing how we want to work (how do we need to work) what does prioritising / sharing of resources / releasing capacity look like.

Outcomes from this workshop included:

• Review of planning resources across all planning teams, including a skills audit
• Review of planning budgets, detailing budgets ringfenced for preparation of development plans/examinations
• Review of capabilities around digital planning and use of AI
• Review of evidence base and timings
• Review of GIS capabilities
• Develop a strategic vision and within this test what an enhanced Duty to Co-operate looks like and how this feeds into/from LGR workstreams
• Scope out the steps that would be needed to prepare a Spatial Development Strategy
• Access LGR data centre, including economic analysis
• Review County Planning Officers Group terms of reference, including establishing a strategic planning directors' group to enable the direct link between strategic leadership across the county and operational delivery
• Leaning into the best practice between the SLP councils and Gloucestershire County Council on strategic transport planning input into plan preparation and the supporting evidence base and transport modelling. A rural districts group to be set up to create a structured conversation between Cotswolds, Stroud, Forest of Dean district councils and Gloucestershire County Council for transport and infrastructure
• Scope for targeted review of Gloucestershire Local Transport Plan to support strategic infrastructure conversation
• Building countywide knowledge around S106² & viability

The Planning and Infrastructure Bill's intention is to streamline the planning process in. The main focus is to speed up and streamline the delivery of new homes and critical infrastructure, supporting delivery of the government's Plan for Change milestones of building 1.5 million safe and decent homes in England and fasttracking 150 planning decisions on major economic infrastructure projects by the end of this Parliament .

The Bill is divided into 6 Parts dedicated to the following topics:

1. Infrastructure (covering nationally significant infrastructure projects (NSIPs), Electricity Infrastructure and Transport Infrastructure);
2. Planning;
3. Spatial development strategies;
4. Development and nature recovery;
5. Compulsory Purchase; and
6. Miscellaneous and General Provisions.

The Bill introduces a system of strategic planning across England via the introduction of strategic planning tool - the Spatial Development Strategy (SDS). The Bill, as currently worded, places a duty on combined authorities, combined county authorities, upper-tier county councils and unitary authorities to prepare an SDS for their area. The Bill also enables the government to establish strategic planning boards to prepare SDSs on behalf of specified groupings of these authorities.

Local Growth Plan Update

The City Region Board was scheduled to receive an update on the draft Local Growth Plan. It had been the intention to present the final draft of the Local Growth Plan to the board, with an officer recommendation to 'agree' the draft document. However, following feedback from colleagues, officers were aware of some concerns with the existing draft. Considering this, and following a conversation with the chair of the City Region Board, it was decided to delay seeking agreement of the draft Local Growth Plan until the September meeting of the City Region Board. This would enable any outstanding issues to be addressed, with a view to ensuring that all authorities are happy with the final draft.

Business Rate Pool and Strategic Economic Development Fund (SEDF)

The City Region Board was scheduled to receive an update on the Business Rate Pool and Strategic Economic Development Fund (SEDF). The Gloucestershire Business Rates Pool (GBRP) was originally set up to maximise the business rates income retained within the county by implementing a 50% rates retention system. The resulting Strategic Economic Development Fund (SEDF) is allocated through a bidding process to support economic growth activity across Gloucestershire.

All of the billing authorities have now completed their draft year-end business rate figures. All authorities had higher retained rates than central government baselines resulting in an overall gain for the pool. The pooling system allows the total growth to be combined and a pool levy to be calculated. In practice this means that a lower level of growth is returned to central government through the levy system than would otherwise have been the case.

As has been reported, the Pool membership has been amended from 1 April 2025. Cheltenham will no longer be part of the pool but will continue to benefit from the Pool gain. This is to increase the business rates income retained locally and maximise the Pool Gain.

Government have confirmed that the long anticipated reset of business rates growth will take place in 2026. This means that it is likely that the growth in the business rates system which generates the pool gain will likely be redistributed elsewhere.

Economic Dashboard

The City Region Board was scheduled to receive an update on the economic dashboard. The economic dashboard included data on:

• Growth in Gross Value Added (GVA)
• Claimant Count - Unemployment
• Payrolled Employees - Pay
• Unique Active Job Postings