Planning for Rutland’s Future - Issues and Options Consultation

Issue 6: Enabling safer and stronger communities, supported with viable and accessible community and cultural facilities

Strategic Objective 6: Supporting all communities across the County to make them safer and stronger.

Strategic Objective 5: Enabling Rutland's market towns and, their centres in particular, to be places for economic and cultural activity with good access to services; seeking to sustain a network of larger villages that serve local needs; and enabling the viability and sustainability of smaller villages and countryside – in ways which protect the County's heritage, character and identity.
 

Planned Limits of Development (PLD)

The NPPF sets out that to promote sustainable development in rural areas, development (including housing) should be located where it will enhance or maintain the vitality of rural communities. Planning policies should identify opportunities for villages to grow and thrive, especially where this will support local services. Where there are groups of smaller settlements, development in one village may support services in a village nearby.

The adopted plan identifies Planned Limits of Development (PLD) around all but the smallest settlements in the County. The PLDs mark the limit of the built-up areas of towns and villages. Within the PLDs small scale development and the conversion or redevelopment of existing buildings is generally considered to be acceptable (subject to matters of detail). Beyond the PLD development is restricted to countryside uses.

This policy approach has been effective and has limited the expansion of Rutland's towns and villages into the countryside. The use of boundaries to mark the limit of settlements clearly denotes where development might be considered acceptable and where it is unlikely to be accepted, making planning decisions consistent and robust.

The current PLDs were defined in 2012 and may need to be reviewed in the new Local Plan to ensure that they are appropriately defined. We should also use this opportunity to consider whether the use of PLDs remains an appropriate approach for determining the location of development.

Neighbourhood Plans

The Localism Act 2011 gave communities more control and influence over their area and how it should develop. The community-led Neighbourhood Plan is the main tool for doing this. Neighbourhood planning allows residents, employees and businesses to come together through a Town or Parish Council or neighbourhood forum and say where, for example, they think new houses, businesses and shops should be located and what they should look like. It is not compulsory and should not be used as a way to stop development, and plans must be broadly in line with the Local Plan for the area.

The Council has a statutory duty to advise and guide the development of Neighbourhood Plans in Rutland. It is keen to encourage local people to develop community-led and community-resourced neighbourhood plans, where local communities consider this appropriate, in order to support the emergence of sustainable communities across the County.

Government has not sought to prescribe how local planning authorities should meet their 'duty to support' the preparation of NDPs. The Council's neighbourhood function largely focuses on ensuring both parties are following due process and that it acts as a critical friend on emerging NDP policy. The Council has published guidance has prepared a Service Level Agreement that sets out the technical advice that it can provide and guidance on the role of the Council and local groups in preparing neighbourhood plans. Town or Parish councils preparing neighbourhood plans are asked to sign up to this agreement at the beginning of the process of preparing a neighbourhood plan.

National policy requires the Council to identify strategic policies of Local Plan by making clear which Local Plan policies are strategic. This will aid the 'general conformity' process and enable town and parish councils to identify parts of the local plan that may have scope to be altered and added to at a local level. The Council could consider developing a new Neighbourhood Plan policy that sets out conditions that neighbourhood plans will need to pass to be in general conformity with the adopted Rutland Local Plan.

Community Facilities

Community facilities and services include facilities such as local shops, meeting places, sports venues, cultural buildings, public houses, places of worship and other local services to enhance the sustainability of communities and residential environments. There are many existing facilities within Rutland's settlements that provide for the health and wellbeing, social, educational, recreational, leisure and cultural needs of the community. Some of these serve a local community, while some serve a wider area or serve a group or cluster of interdependent settlements.

To be sustainable, suitable good quality facilities must be provided locally whilst those that attract large numbers of visitors should be accessible by walking, cycling and public transport. Accessibility should also be equitable, ensuring adaptability to the specific needs of different disabilities. This particularly benefits the less mobile and more deprived members of the community. The provision of local community facilities and services is essential to the quality of life for local residents as they encourage community cohesion and social interaction, healthy lifestyles, improve the 'liveability' of places, provide employment opportunities, and will reduce the need for people to travel to obtain essential services. Key issues to address are building inclusive and healthy communities with good and reasonable access to well-located, high-quality key services and community facilities, protecting existing community facilities, and the delivery of new facilities to meet community needs and promoting healthy lifestyles through support for initiatives such as provision of sports and recreation facilities and improved access to green infrastructure. A key challenge will be to ensure that the correct amount and type of facilities are delivered as part of future growth proposals to meet community needs.

Policies and decisions should aim to achieve places, which promote opportunities for meetings between members of the community who might not come into contact with each other including mixed use developments, strong neighbourhood centres, and active street frontages which bring together those who work, live and play in the vicinity. Policies should also plan positively for the provision and use of shared space, community facilities and other local services to enhance the sustainability of communities and residential environments.