COTSWOLD DISTRICT LOCAL PLAN 2001-2011 (Adopted April 2006)
6. PLANNING OBLIGATIONS AND CONDITIONS
6.1 New development will inevitably make additional demands on service provision and have social, environmental and/or economic impacts. These demands and impacts must be addressed through the planning system to ensure that development is sustainable. The onus must always rest on the developer to clarify whether any wayleaves, licences, consents, permissions or requisitioning may be required from other bodies.
6.2 Applicants should consider the full implications and costs of their development proposals at an early stage, preferably well in advance of submitting a planning application. All developments will be expected to provide for their own infrastructure and service needs. Infrastructure provision may include highways and public rights of way, land drainage, sewerage, waste disposal and treatment, gas, electricity, telecommunications, and water supply. Many developments will have effects on such public services such as health provision, public transport, education, fire and rescue, social services, litter and waste collection, provision for recreation and sport, toilets and car parks. Nature conservation and landscape enhancement measures to mitigate the impact of development, together with the provision of public art, should also be considered as part of the development cost.
6.3 Appropriate measures should therefore be incorporated into proposals to meet the needs of the future occupiers and users of the development and to mitigate the impact of the development on the surrounding area, including the existing local community, public services and facilities, and the environment. Applicants may reasonably be expected to pay for, or contribute to, the cost of infrastructure or mitigation measures that are necessary:
1. for their development;
2. to overcome an existing constraint which is materially exacerbated by their proposals; or
3. to make compensating provision elsewhere; and
4. to contribute generally to the infrastructure or social needs of the community.
6.4 The Council will carefully consider the use of planning obligations and conditions to help to achieve sustainable development. Planning obligations should only be required to make a proposed development acceptable; they cannot be used for rectifying past mistakes. The process of negotiation will be carried out in an open, transparent, fair and reasonable manner. Planning permission must not be perceived to be bought or sold. Public confidence in the process is essential.
Planning Obligations
6.5 Section 106 of the Town and Country Planning Act 1990 (as amended by the Planning and Compensation Act 1991) provides the statutory framework for the use of planning obligations. The obligations run with the land and are therefore enforceable against the original covenantor and anyone subsequently acquiring an interest in the land. Department of Environment (DoE) Circular 1/97 sets out the Government’s policy for the use of planning obligations.
6.6 Planning obligations may be used to:
1. restrict development or use of land;
2. require operations or activities to be carried out in, on, under or over land;
3. require land to be used in any specified way; or
4. require payments to be made to an authority either in a single sum or periodically.
6.7 Planning obligations can therefore have a positive role to play in the planning system as they can remedy planning problems and enhance the quality of development. They may enable proposals to go ahead which might otherwise be refused and can be important in the implementation of planning policies for an area.
6.8 Planning obligations should only be sought where they meet a series of tests. They should be relevant to planning and directly relate to the proposed development if they are to influence a decision on a planning application. They must be necessary to make a proposal acceptable in land-use planning terms. They should also be fairly and reasonably related in scale and kind to the proposed development and be reasonable in all other respects.
6.9 Benefits in a planning obligation which go beyond what is necessary must not affect the outcome of a planning decision. An offer of such an obligation will not necessarily be unlawful, but should be given very little weight in the determination of an application.
Planning Conditions
6.10 DoE Circular 11/95 sets out the Government’s policy advice on the use of conditions in planning permissions. They should be used in preference to planning obligations, where possible. The Circular sets out six tests which conditions should satisfy. They should be: necessary; relevant to planning; relevant to the development to be permitted; enforceable; precise; and reasonable in all other respects.
National Planning Policy
6.11 Most Planning Policy Guidance Notes (PPGs) indicate circumstances and examples of when the use of planning obligations and conditions may be appropriate. The following points provide a summary of this advice.
6.12 It may be appropriate to use planning obligations and/or conditions to secure as part of development proposals:
1. adequate provision of infrastructure; including education, health and community facilities, transport services and facilities, water supply and sewerage infrastructure;
2. high quality design and good quality development;
3. affordable housing contributions and the reservation of such housing to meet local needs in perpetuity;
4. improved accessibility by all modes of transport but with the emphasis on public transport, walking and cycling within new developments and to the surrounding area, town and local centres;
5. easy and safe access to developments for people with special needs;
6. the implementation of a travel plan;
7. measures to minimise the generation of waste and to promote more sustainable methods of waste management during the construction and the occupation/use of a development; and
8. recreational facilities and open space; for example by requiring direct provision, or contributions to the establishment or enhancement of a nearby facility, or conversion of another site, and contributions for maintenance.
6.13 When considering planning applications, it may be appropriate to use planning obligations/conditions to control, limit or mitigate the impact of the development on:
1. the amenity of the existing community; such as by controlling the hours of operation and noise levels, improving the external appearance of the building, limiting traffic movements, and restricting the routes taken by heavy goods vehicles;
2. the vitality and viability of an existing centre and village shops; for example by controlling the range of goods sold at an out-of-centre retail development or a farm shop;
3. the environment, air, water, land or sky; for example by controlling traffic impacts, design, scale and landscaping;
4. flooding and flood risk; for example by requiring provision of, or contributions towards, flood defence and mitigation works, and also the incorporation of measures such as flood-resistant construction techniques and sustainable drainage systems into new development;
5. the landscape; for example by controlling the proliferation of farm buildings and over-intensive development of businesses in rural areas;
6. wildlife habitats, important physical features and ‘protected species’;
7. designated sites at risk of damage and archaeological remains; and
8. local highway amenity; for example by requiring wheel cleansing equipment to be used and the road to be washed and swept.
6.14 It may be appropriate to use planning obligations/conditions to help achieve the planning objectives of national and local policies through new development. For example, they may be used, in appropriate circumstances, to:
1. improve the accessibility of a town centre; for example by negotiating dual use of new town centre or edge-of-centre supermarket car parks;
2. reduce the need to travel; for example by encouraging a wide range of facilities in district and local centres through the use of conditions which discourage the inclusion of post offices and pharmacies in out of centre retail developments;
3. enable dwellings in the countryside for agricultural or forestry workers to live close to their work; for example by using occupancy conditions or a planning obligation tying the unit with the agricultural land or the operation of an enterprise; and
4. protect resources; for example by requiring the decontamination of soil and the provision of recycling facilities in particular developments.
6.15 The Cotswold Community Plan sets out the key challenges and priorities for the District. This provides a basis for determining the priorities and nature of provision or contributions to be sought from developers.
6.16 It is important that planning obligations requiring direct provision or developer contributions are co-ordinated towards achieving set aims and objectives for the settlements concerned. The future development priorities and objectives for Cirencester and each of the nine Principal Settlements are set out in Sections 7 - 9 of this Plan.
POLICY 49: PLANNING OBLIGATIONS AND CONDITIONS
1.
2. / In order to achieve sustainable development, proposals will only be permitted if the social, economic and environmental impacts of the development are satisfactorily mitigated, or compensated for, and the service and infrastructure needs generated by the development are fully met.Where appropriate, the Council will impose conditions, or seek planning obligations, to secure the provision or improvement of community infrastructure and services that would be made necessary by, and directly related to, the development, having regard to the type, location, scale and cumulative impact of the development proposed.
NOTES FOR GUIDANCE:
1. Application of the Policy: The policy applies, in principle, to all development proposals. However, in practice, the degree to which the policy applies will depend on the type, nature and scale of the proposal, and also the timing and viability of the development. The policy does not specify threshold levels for different types of development as the needs and impacts will vary according to local circumstances and the individual nature of specific development proposals. The exact requirement generated by a proposal is unlikely to be known until the application stage as the capacity of facilities may change, and the requirements should be directly related to the development proposal if they are to be given weight.
2. Development Impacts and Needs: Depending on the nature and scale of a development proposal, there are likely to be social, economic and environmental impacts, as well as needs, arising from the development. For example, impacts and needs may cover issues in relation to:
· local amenity;
· the environment;
· the vitality and viability of existing town and local centres;
· accessibility by sustainable modes of transport;
· public services; and
· other community facilities.
Developers may reasonably be expected to pay for, or contribute to, the cost of infrastructure that is necessary for the development and also to overcome an existing constraints that materially exacerbated by the proposal. Depending on existing provision and the scale of the need generated, contributions may be required for the establishment of a new community facility or enhancement of an existing one. With regard to impacts on local amenity or environment, the maintenance, enhancement or replacement of the amenity or environmental resource may be required. Measures to overcome the impacts of development proposals should be in accordance with national and local policy objectives. Greater detail on specific impacts and needs is provided in other policies of the Local Plan.
3. Community Infrastructure: Community infrastructure is a term used to describe a range of land use matters that should be taken into consideration when assessing development proposals. It includes:
· physical infrastructure such as roads, footpaths, cyclepaths, canals, landscaping, sewers, water supply and drainage;
· social infrastructure such as schools, libraries, health facilities, fire and rescue, affordable housing, special needs housing, public transport services, recreational and leisure facilities, play areas, public art, other public services and community facilities;
· environmental infrastructure such as wildlife habitats and corridors, nature conservation, species protection, open space, biodiversity, energy and other natural resources; and
· economic infrastructure such as employment and commercial uses, retail facilities, waste collection, car parking, and the transport network.
4. The Use of Planning Obligations and Conditions: The Council recognises that planning obligations and conditions should only be used to make development proposals acceptable, that would otherwise be refused. They should relate directly to the development, be necessary and reasonable. In considering the needs arising from development proposals and the impacts of the development on social, economic and environmental matters, the Council will make particular reference to the following sources of local information:
· the policies and proposals of the Local Plan;
· the Gloucestershire Structure Plan, Local Transport Plan and Biodiversity Action Plan;
· the Cotswold Community Plan, Housing Strategy, Economic Development Strategy; Sustainability Policy and Strategy;
· Supplementary Planning Guidance and Development Briefs;
· specific surveys and studies, where available, on topics such as housing needs, open space, landscape, retail, leisure and playing fields, and community facilities;
· Gloucestershire County Council on services such as highways, sustainable transport, education, social services, libraries, youth and community, fire and rescue; and
· other local ‘stakeholders’, such as the Environment Agency, Primary Care Trust, Highways Agency and Police Authority.
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The Local Plan must be read as a whole. Proposals will be considered against all relevant policies.