Issue - meetings

This report seeks approval for a proposed response to the Spatial Options consultation carried out by the Regional Assembly as part of Partial Review of the Regional Spatial Strategy and sets out the next steps in the review process.

RESOLVED: That the proposed response to the Spatial Options consultation set out in the report and summarised in Annex B be approved for submission to the Regional Assembly by the end of January.

REASON:      The response reflects Members’ view, and that of other authorities across the region, that the RSS should not be reviewed at this early stage.

Members considered a report which sought their approval for a proposed response to the Spatial Options consultation carried out by the Regional Assembly (RA) as part of the Partial Review of the Regional Spatial Strategy (RSS) for Yorkshire and the Humber.  The consultation period ran to the end of January.

The review, entitled ‘The Housing Challenge, Yorkshire and Humber Plan – Update 2009’, was intended to examine how the region could accommodate housing growth, resulting from the Government’s 2007 Housing Green Paper.  A copy of the response already submitted by the Council to the RA’s initial Call for Evidence document was attached as Annex A to the report.

The Spatial Options consultation document considered three questions:

(1)               How much housing provision should be planned for the future?

(2)               How should it be distributed?

(3)               What options are there to accommodate this growth in each of the seven ‘sub-areas’?

These key questions were discussed in paragraphs 9 to 34 of the report and a proposed response to the consultation was summarised in Annex B.  Members were invited either to approve the response as drafted (Option 1) or seek amendments to the draft response (Option 2).

Having noted the comments of the Shadow Executive on this item, it was

RESOLVED: That the proposed response to the Spatial Options consultation set out in the report and summarised in Annex B be approved for submission to the Regional Assembly by the end of January.¹

REASON:      The response reflects Members’ view, and that of other authorities across the region, that the RSS should not be reviewed at this early stage.