Decision details

To confirm the timelines required for delivery of the proposed submission Huntingdonshire Local Plan to 2036 (HLP2036) in response to confirmation of national deadlines and confirm the delivery programme for the evidence base necessary to deliver the HLP2036.

i.  Notes progress on preparation of the Huntingdonshire Local Plan to 2036 and its supporting evidence base, including confirmation that the Core Strategy (2009) meets the Government’s requirement to have a submission Local Plan by March 2017, and the update in relation to highways and transport infrastructure projects;

ii.  Endorses the use of approach B as detailed in paragraph 4.3 of the Officer’s report (the revalidated Cambridge Sub-Regional Model for the Strategic Transport Study (CSRM)) as follows:

‘Priority is to develop a defensible transport evidence base: this would involve waiting for the revalidated CSRM to be available which could provide forecasts up to 2041 if required and would be based on an up-to-date data set. This would form a more robust evidence base for the Local Plan Examination and be less susceptible to challenge from developers. Preliminary work could be undertaken in the short-term but this approach would necessitate delaying modelling the four development scenarios until the revalidation work on the CSRM is completed; checking to test accuracy for the Huntingdonshire area could be incorporated within the scope of the Strategic Transport Study.’; and

iii.  Request that Cambridgeshire County Council provides an explanation as to why the Highway work is delayed and provide absolute assurances that they will commit to the amended timescales.

To update Members on preparation of the HLP2036 and its associated evidence base, to seek endorsement of the proposed approach to await the revalidated CSRM for the Strategic Transport Study, with the acknowledgement that this will result in the timetable set out in the Local Development Scheme not being achieved.

Approach A as detailed in paragraph 4.3 of the Officer’s report: 

‘Priority is to complete the proposed submission Local Plan by December 2016: this would necessitate use of the old CSRM model which is available now but only forecasts to 2031, it would be open to challenge by developers on the basis that dated information has been used and incurs the major risk that at the Local Plan Examination the Inspector may ask for the development scenarios to be retested through the revalidated CSRM as that will be well established by that time. This could result in a suspension of the Examination of around six months and an additional cost of over £100,000 to re-run the modelling and complete the analysis of its outputs’.

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A single Planning Policy earmarked reserve was agreed by the Cabinet on 17 March 2016 enabling money to be drawn down to support production of the evidence base. It is expected that any additional funding required for the Strategic Flood Risk Assessment can be drawn from this.