At the request of the Committee the Head of Planning and Regeneration will provide an update on the ‘Garden Village’.
Minutes:
The Committee had before it a briefing paper * from the Head of Planning and Regeneration providing an update on the ‘Garden Village’.
The officer outlined the contents of the report, explaining that the Government had asked Councils for expressions of interest for locally-led garden villages, towns and cities under a prospectus issued in March 2016. A report was considered by Cabinet at the meeting of 9th June 2016 in relation to making an expression of interest to the Government for a locally-led garden village on land to the east of Cullompton.
The Local Plan Review identified Cullompton for future strategic growth and proposed to allocate land to the east of Cullompton as a suitable location for this growth. The draft allocation policy was for mixed use development including 1,750 dwellings with at least a further 850 post 2033. In addition, a neighbourhood planning exercise for Cullompton was well underway and was considering spatial allocations including further land to the east of Cullompton in order to support community infrastructure. To get to this stage, the plan had previously been through three separate stages of public consultation with a further one currently underway (until 14th February). The growth of Cullompton had been supported by the Town Council.
On 2nd January 2017, the Minister had announced that this authority was one of 14 successful bids for garden village status.
Garden villages would be part of a new generation of locally led development to meet local housing need, with a focus on creating attractive, well-designed places. The Government intention was to assist and speed up the delivery of an ambitious high quality, housing programme where strong communities were at the heart of new development.
The authority was already aware that new infrastructure would be required to support development east of Cullompton and had commissioned work on flooding modelling and J28/M5 highway works to accommodate development. The Government’s prospectus offered a tailored support package by way of capacity funding, brokerage across Government to unblock issues and access to government funding streams on housing, roads and rail capital programmes. The Government had also offered working with successful Councils to deliver planning freedoms in exchange for housing delivery and this may include ensuring a greater ability to resist speculative residential planning applications.
The additional work that had been commissioned in relation to junction improvements at J28 of the M5 motorway was well underway and had the potential to significantly address the current capacity concerns of the junction and allow for further growth beyond that allocated within the adopted plan. The junction improvements were being designed to increase capacity by 5,000 dwellings and so this formed a logical maximum for future, further growth.
Garden village status was expected to assist in the delivery of the town centre relief road and J28 improvements through financial assistance, opening up the potential for an up-front Government loan in order to deliver the improvements earlier than would be expected if funding was fully reliant upon development. It proposed working in parallel on master-planning and detailed highway improvement design in order to shorten the lead in period to planning permission for the works and their delivery.
The Government’s written confirmation of garden village status for the project indicated expected capacity funding which had now been confirmed at £214,000 for 16/17 and 17/18. It was understood that there could be further funding opportunities beyond this dependent upon progress.
Discussion took place regarding the infrastructure required for Cullompton which included schools, relief roads, changes to the motorway junction and health needs.
Note: - Briefing paper * previously circulated and attached to the Minutes.
Supporting documents: