Decision details

The Joint Spatial Plan (JSP) is currently at public examination and, as is usually the case at this stage, the four West of England Councils consider that, in responding to the Inspectors’ questions, a number of changes will be needed to the JSP. These changes are summarised below.
Subject to approval, these proposed changes will be incorporated into the WoE Hearing Statements to be submitted to the Inspectors and published from 28th May. These changes will only become formal modifications to the JSP if endorsed by the Inspector and formally agreed by the Full Councils in due course. A further set of minor changes will need to be agreed ready to submit to the Inspectors on 28th June . In summary, these modifications are:

Statements for submission 28th May 2019
1. An update to the housing requirement to reflect the updated SHMA figure (102,800) and apportionment of it by UA for monitoring purposes (Policy 1)
2. Deletion of reference to contingency (Policy 1 and Policy 2)
3. Clarify that strategic alterations to the Green Belt can only made in the JSP but in Local Plans can set out detailed changes if justified (Policy 2).
Statements for submission 28th June 2019
4. Re-working of affordable housing policy to include a UA apportionment of unmet Bristol need for affordable/socially rented housing (to be made available for Bristol nominations) and submit to the EiP a commitment to prepare a series of MOUs and to clarify the role of viability testing, within an agreed timetable and as per specified heads of terms.
5. Incorporation of the updated HRA recommendations through amendments to Policy 5, 6 and 7s (SDL policies).
6. Re-naming the GI Plan a GI Strategy, and inclusion of key GI principles to be reflected in its content in Policy 5 or 6.
7. Inclusion of a list of transport measures necessary to implement the Plan and deletion of the reference to prioritisation (Policy 6).

These modifications are relatively minor and they do not re-visit plan fundamentals. They are based on the existing evidence base and other published material and are to make the plan Sound and/or legally compliant.

There are also minor clarification modifications that need to be made (arising from other questions) which will help the application of the policies and preparation of Local Plans going forward. These are.

o Provide a table to show which UA LP policies will be superseded by adoption of JSP

o Include additional text in JSP that all policies in JSP are strategic policies and that UA LPs can also include strategic policies if compliant with JSP.

That the proposed modifications to the West of England Joint Spatial Plan, are included in the Statements of Response to the Inspectors Questions to be published on 28th May 2019 and 28th June.
That the Director of Development and Public Protection is instructed to formulate the proposed changes to the policies for inclusion in the WoE Hearing Statements.

Option 1 - The Councils have the option not to advise the Inspectors of further changes they would like to introduce to the JSP. However, this would make it harder for the Councils to present their case at the examination and maintain the commitment to the JSP at the Examination. It would also risk the likelihood of the JSP being found sound.