Agenda item

This report asks Members to recommend to Executive to agree the Examiner’s recommendations to enable the Neighbourhood Plan to proceed to Referendum.

Members considered a report which updated them on the examination of the Plan and the Inspectors’ suggested modifications to the submitted Plan.

Officers expressed their thanks to the Neighbourhood Planning Group for the work they had put into producing the plan.  They advised that the examiners report had been received on 17 July. The examiner had concluded that, subject to the incorporation of modifications, the Rufforth with Knapton Neighbourhood Plan should proceed to referendum and the that the neighbourhood area was entirely appropriate for the purpose of the referendum. Officers explained that the modifications related to the Greenbelt and in particular the setting of a greenbelt boundary in advance of the examination of the York Local Plan and the examiner had recommended that the neighbourhood plan continue to apply the approach to the identification of the greenbelt as set out in RSS and the current Development Control Local Plan on an interim basis until such time as the emerging plan was adopted.

The Examiner therefore recommended deleting the proposed sites for housing identified in the neighbourhood plan stating that it was not within the remit of the neighbourhood plan to allocate land within the general extent of the greenbelt and that this was properly a role for theLocal Plan. The report also recognised the hard work that the group have put into producing a distinctive set of local criteria to under pin the sites development and that in the event that the adopted Local Plan included these sites, they could be incorporated at that time through a review of the neighbourhood plan.

Officers explained the requirements of neighbourhood planning legislation and confirmed that they had considered all of the recommendations and the examiners reasons for them and had set out the Council’s response as part of the decision statement. They recommended that all of the examiners modifications be made and that, subject to those modifications, the Plan met the basic conditions and complied with the provisions that can be made by a neighbourhood plan.

They explained that subject to the Executive’s agreement of the decision statement, the decision statement would be published, the Neighbourhood Plan would be amended accordingly and would proceed to local referendum. If the result of the referendum was in favour then it would be ‘made’ and would be brought back to the Local Plan Working Group and Executive in January 2019 as this was an Executive function.

Sympathy was expressed for the villages with regard to the sites which had to be taken out of the neighbourhood plan but Members agreed that the plan included a good level of detail and that the modifications put forward by the examiner were sensible enhancements. The Chair expressed his thanks to the Chair of the Neighbourhood Planning Group for the hard work of the group.

Resolved:  That the Local Plan Working Group recommend to Executive to:

(i)      agree the Examiner’s modifications set out at Annex B to the Rufforth with Knapton Neighbourhood Plan and that subject to those changes the Plan meets the Basic Conditions and other legislative requirements

Reason: To allow the Neighbourhood Plan to progress in line with neighbourhood planning legislation.

(ii)     agree that the Rufforth with Knapton Neighbourhood Plan as amended proceeds to a local referendum based on the geographic boundary of the parish of Rufforth with Knapton as recommend by the Examiner. 

Reason: To allow the Neighbourhood Plan to progress in line with neighbourhood planning legislation.

(iii)     approve the Decision Statement attached at Annex B to be published on the City of York Council’s website.

Reason: To allow the Neighbourhood Plan to progress in line with neighbourhood planning legislation.