Your update from the Planning Policy team

Welcome 

Welcome to the September 2017 Planning Policy newsletter, which keeps you updated about the work of Reigate & Banstead Borough Council’s Policy Team, current planning policy issues and public consultations.

In this issue we cover the latest progress on the Development Management Plan (DMP) and the Community Infrastructure Levy (CIL) and look at some of the headline figures from our latest monitoring reports.

Development Management Plan

We received around 1,100 responses to the first round of consultation (‘Regulation 18’) on the next stage of the Development Management Plan (DMP), which presented issues and options for policy options, designations and potential development sites to deliver the development principles and targets in the Council’s adopted Core Strategy 2014.


This consultation took place between 1 August and 10 October 2016. Views were sought from a wide range of stakeholders including organisations, businesses, government departments and local residents. Public consultation events were held in Banstead, Redhill, Woodhatch and Horley, giving members of the public the opportunity to discuss proposals with staff from the Policy Team and local councillors. Thank you to everyone who engaged with us and took the time to respond.

The comments made in the first round of consultation are helping us prepare the formal draft version of the DMP (‘Regulation 19’). We will publish a consultation statement alongside the draft Regulation 19 version, which will explain how we addressed points raised through the Regulation 18 consultation.


The Pre-Submission Regulation 19 consultation will provide an opportunity for final comments on the soundness and legal compliancy of the document before the document and all comments are submitted to a Planning Inspector who will conduct an independent examination and any public hearings. Any changes required by the Planning Inspector will be made public before the Plan can be finally adopted by the Council.

At the end of March a revised timetable for the DMP process was agreed by the Council’s Executive (see table below). This is in recognition of additional work that the Policy Team need to undertake to refine and extend the evidence base to provide up to date and objective evidence to support our decisions. This is in response to the Regulation 18 consultation, as well as changes to national planning policies and government planning guidance, including some which we anticipate coming into force in the near future.

Milestone

Timetable  

Regulation 19 consultation

January – February 2018

Submission to Government

March 2018

Examination by Planning Inspector

March – August 2018

Adoption by Council*

November 2018

*Dependent on the recommendations of the independent inspector

More information about the DMP, the evidence base and our plan timetable can be found on the Development Management Plan page of the Council’s website.

More information on the next steps in the Local Plan process can be accessed via the “Planning Portal” here.

 
Community Infrastructure Levy 

The Community Infrastructure Levy (CIL) is a payment collected from most new residential and convenience retail developments in the borough and put towards improving infrastructure in our communities. In the first year of operation, the levy has brought in £187,561 of funding, and this is expected to increase as more developments get underway.

CIL is divided into two portions, the strategic element (80% of the total raised) and the Local Improvements Fund (15%):

Strategic element: On 13 July 2017, the Council’s Executive approved a Strategic Infrastructure Programme, which sets out how strategic CIL funds will be spent between 2017 and 2022. The prioritised projects include refurbishment at Redhill Library, flood alleviation schemes and public transport improvements in Preston, Reigate and Redhill. The full list of prioritised projects can be read in Annex 3 of Item 5 of the Executive Agenda for the 13 July meeting.

Local Improvements Fund: We would like to thank everyone who took part in our Local Improvement Fund consultation earlier this year, which asked what you thought about local infrastructure and service improvements. Over the next few months, a wide range of potential projects will be considered for the Local Improvements Fund and your responses will help inform our decisions.


Monitoring Reports

Our latest monitoring reports on housing, industrial estates and commercial development provide information about recent development in the borough. Some highlights include:

  • Housing: Over the past year, 517 net additional dwellings have been constructed, with a fairly even spread across the four main towns of Redhill, Reigate, Horley and Banstead. This is a slight decrease from the previous year (when 558 additional dwellings were built), but is still above the Council’s annual target of 460 homes per year.

  • Industrial Estates: The industrial estates in the borough are also doing well, with 26 businesses newly occupying units on the estates in the past year, and 14 vacating units. This has resulted in an extra 10,797sqm of industrial space being used compared to the previous year.

  • Commercial: For overall commercial development, the amount of vacant employment space in the borough has marginally increased (42,646sqm to 45,069sqm); however the number of annual business start-ups reported by ONS has increased significantly, from 900 to 975.

All of these details and more can be found on the Plan Monitoring pages of the Council’s website.

Contact us

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Please feel free to contact the Planning Policy Team via:
Email: LDF@reigate-banstead.gov.uk
Tel: 01737 276178 
Address: Town Hall, Castlefield Road, Reigate RH5 5TD