The main agenda item on tonight's meeting of the TDC Planning and Environment Committee was the draft submission on the Core Strategy. This document is the key part of the new Local Development Framework, which will govern how planning policies and development decisions are formulated and decided over the next ten years or so. It was therefore key that we got it right. The strategy has therefore been long in drafting, and all Councillors present paid tribute to the hard work of the officers in putting together such a high quality product which we decided with some minor amendments will now be sent to the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government for an inspector to rule on its soundness (this will take around a year or so).
Unfortunately because of the strong level of central control the result will still not be what either local residents, Council officers or Councillors would ideally want. Despite the fact this document has been put together following consultation and approval by democratically elected councillors, the controlling tendency of Government Ministers mean that national policies can and will override the wishes of local people and if there is just one aspect that the inspector doesn't like he will declare the whole thing unsound and we will be back to square one.
I think what was approved tonight was a good document (and the best the officers could be expected to produce), but the only way for a truly excellent Core Strategy would be for Central Government to respect that local decisions made by local people, for local people, will have the most legitimacy and in the long term willbe the only way to restore any faith in the electoral process. For an unelected inspector to (regardless of his or her qualities) to be able to hold so much sway over local decision making should not occur in modern Britain.
