Full Draft Plan

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Core Strategy - Full Draft Plan

Return to the top level Core Strategy page

Summary of Comments

We had thought that the summary we published on February 22nd was the final summary.

We now find that more comments have been processed and we are told that "comments received during the consultation have now all been entered into the database."

This should be the final summary.

1,261 people made 8,749 comments.

This compares to 1,100/11,737 at Issues & Options, 608/4,348 at the Preferred Options 1 and 1,922/12,138 at Preferred Options 2.

20.3% of the comments were General, 9.4% in Support and 70.3% Objecting.

In the first seven sections (Economy, Housing, Green Belt etc) 93% of the non-general comments are Objections.

In the last five sections (Historic, IT, Nature etc) 68% of the non-general comments are Support.

An average of 733 people used pro forma responses to answer up to 7 specific questions making 5,128 comments about the proposals as they relate to Ponteland.

This compares to 300 people at Issues & Options and Preferred Options 1, and 920 at Preferred Options 2.

The total figures without these Ponteland comments are:

528 people have made 3,621 comments.

Of these, 46% of the comments have been General, 23% in Support and 31% Objecting.

In the first seven sections 68% of the non-general comments are Objections and in the last five sections 68% of the non-general comments are Support.

This data has been extracted by The Editors from  northumberland.limehouse.co.uk/portal/planning

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Summary of the Full Draft Plan

The NCC have produced an 8-page 'Brief guide to the Core Strategy Full Draft Plan'.

This can be viewed in the Full Draft Plan Documents section at the bottom of this page.

It can also be downloaded from their Northumberland Local Plan webpage which contains full details of all the stages of the development of the Core Strategy.

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Our Summary

• Population Increase

• The natural population increase predicted by the Office of National Statistics has been reduced

• They now project an increase in population of 8,195 (2.6%) over the 2011-2031 period

• At the time of the Preferred Options consultation they were projecting an increase of 13,337 (4.2%)

• That is a 38.6% reduction in the projected natural population increase.

• The Full Draft Plan doesn't say what population increase is proposed.

  • The Strategic Housing Market Assessment shows an increase of 33,686 (10.7%)

  • Preferred Options planned an increase of 32,723 (10.3%) so that's a 2.8% increase in the planned population increase.

• New Jobs

• The Full Draft Plan proposes allocating 387 hectares of land for economic development

• to help create 10,000 new jobs, about 2,100 full time equivalent.

• New Houses

• The Full Draft Plan proposes that Northumberland has an additional 23,520 new houses (17.0%).

• In the Preferred Options consultation they were proposing an increase of 24,310 (17.6%)

• That is a 3.2% reduction in the proposed increase.

• SHLAA

• The Strategic Housing Land Availability Assessment published December 2014 shows an availability 27,756 houses compared to the 23,520 proposed.

• The Full Draft Plan says while there is a surplus to deliver the strategy in all Delivery Areas, small area analysis demonstrates that these sites are not all in the correct locations to deliver the strategy.

• In order to address the shortfall, some sites considered uncertain, mostly because they are located in the Green Belt, will need to be considered for housing development.

• That small area analysis is not included in the Full Draft Plan.

• The Strategic Housing Market Assessment published December 2014 does contain a range of small area scenarios but these do not include the Employment Policy scenario that was used to develop the Full Draft Plan housing numbers and they are not the scenarios that were used for the small area housing numbers - those scenarios have not been published, as far as we can see. At our request the planning department did supply us with the scenario used for the 'Central Area: Rest of Area' housing number.

• The housing numbers for the small areas were developed bottom-up and adjusted to total the county-wide total.

• The small areas in the Full Draft Plan are not as small as those used in Preferred Options. For example, 'Central Area: Rest of Area' was broken down into four areas in Preferred Options but left as one total in the Full Draft Plan.

• New Houses in the Central Area

• The Central Area has the biggest reduction in the number of new houses - now 5,680 (was 6,270 so that's a 9.4% reduction)

• Within the Central Area the 'Rest of Area' has the biggest reduction in the number of new houses - now 1,120 (was 1,720 so that's a 34.9% reduction)

• Ponteland has the second biggest reduction in the Central Area - now 640 (was 850 so that's a 24.7% reduction)

• Wind Turbines

• The Full Draft Plan proposes the same separation distance as proposed in the original Preferred Options consultation in February 2013:

• “To protect visual amenity, there will be a presumption against development within a distance of six times the turbine blade tip height”

• Green Belt

• The Full Draft Plan proposes that the Green Belt is extended as the originally proposed Option 2 of the Issue & Options consultation in July 2012.

• The latest proposed Green Belt would extend to Longhorsley village.

• This was the option supported by the majority of respondents from Longhorsley.

See the NCC's News Story More jobs and more choice in housing are key to core strategy

and the Journal's article Northumberland anti-wind campaigners welcome greenbelt reversal

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What is Happening

The draft "Full Draft Plan" was approved by the NCC's Policy Board meeting on 27th November 2014.

The PDF versions of the documents reviewed by the Policy Board are in the Full Draft Plan Documents section at the bottom of this page.

You can comment online from from Friday December 12th to Wednesday February 11th through the Consultation Portal

This is the recommended route.

If you commented during the "Issues and Options" or either “Preferred Options” consultations, use the same log in details you used then.

If not, you will need to register - Click on [Login / Register] at the top of the Consultation Portal page.

You also can submit comments by email to PlanningStrategy@northumberland.gov.uk

NCC are holding drop-in consultation sessions in January - see the full list in the Full Draft Plan Documents section at the bottom of this page.

Longhorsley Parish Council have produced a new leaflet which summarises the Full Draft Plan for the same key issues that were covered in their previous leaflets.

At the time the Parish Council leaflet was produced the question numbers were not known but these question numbers have now been added to the leaflet.

An updated leaflet with the question numbers added is available to view and download the Full Draft Plan Documents section at the bottom of this page.

There is also a table showing the question numbers for the items identified in that leaflet.

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Key Stages of the Core Strategy Preparation

Note: The current NCC Timeline now shows:

Consultation on Pre-Submission Draft - October to November 2015

Submission - March 2016

Examination - Summer 2016

Adoption - Autumn 2016

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Key Numbers

The proposed strategy is

create 10,000 new jobs, about 2,100 full time equivalent (FTE)

build 23,520 new houses

allocate 387 hectares of land for economic development

have a large extension to the Green Belt (as originally proposed)

Key Numbers

Blanks cells mean the figure has not been published.

Cells in yellow contain numbers taken from the Strategic Housing Market Assessment (SHMA)

¹ Calculated from figures published in the Full Draft Plan.

² Was based on 16-64 and now based on 20-64.

³ The policy intervention scenario is 10,200 additional jobs (10%), with 2% (2,100) growth in FTEs. [5.11]

The Core Strategy will plan for the creation of 10,000 additional jobs. [5.14]

This strategy is not referred to in any Policy.

⁴ The number of people per house tends to be lower for older people.

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The Missing Numbers and the Missing Explanations

The Full Draft Plan does not contain an explanation of why Northumberland needs 23,520 new houses to support 10,000 new jobs.

That explanation can be found in the Strategic Housing Market Assessment (SHMA) issued in December 2014.

This table tries to summarise that explanation - see below for more detail of each stage of the process.

County-wide scenarios

The NCC reviewed a range of county-wide scenarios for changes in population, houses and jobs.

These fall into three categories - trend-based, jobs-led and dwelling-led.

The trend-based scenario using the latest Sub-national Population Projections (SNPP 2012) from the Office of National Statistics (ONS) is the official benchmark for the changes in population, houses and jobs.

The SHMA says “While providing a bench mark, the scenario is based on past trends, and does not represent growth aspirations for Northumberland.”

The job-led Employment Policy scenario is the one used for the Full Draft Plan proposals.

It is designed to increase the number of jobs by more than 10,000 over the 20 years of the plan.

The SHMA says “This scenario is aligned with the economic aspirations of the County.”

Household Projections

The household projections published by the Department of Communities and Local Government (DCLG) provide the starting point for estimating overall housing need from the age-sex profile of the population.

The two most recent DCLG Household Projections are DCLG 2008 and DCLG 2011.

The SHMA says that while guidance indicates that the latest evidence should be used, the DCLG 2011 Household Projections are based on short-term trends which include the recession and thus being potentially too negative as the market picks up.

The figures in the Full Draft Plan are based on the average of the 2008 and 2011 DCLG Household Projections.

Other Adjustments

The SHMA says that given that the Northumberland Core Strategy proposes to plan for job growth within the County over the plan period, it is considered appropriate to make adjustments to the assumptions used in the scenarios for commuting and unemployment.

The Full Draft Plan assumes that the commuting ratio falls from 1.19 to 1.09 and the unemployment rate falls from 5.9% to 4.5%.

Small Area Scenarios

The SHMA contains a range of small area scenarios but these do not include the Employment Policy scenarios.

The housing numbers for the small areas where developed bottom-up and adjusted to total the county-wide total.

Those scenarios have not been published, as far as we can see.

Scenarios are shown for each 'Rest of Area' as a total - these areas are not broken down into smaller areas as they were at Preferred Options.

For example, at Preferred Options Hartburn & Longhorsley was one of four areas within Central, Rest of Area.

This section is available as "The Missing Numbers.PDF" below.

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Full Draft Plan Documents

To download a document - View the document and then [File] [Download]