The front page of the Craven Herald, 16th September, reported that the publication of the final draft of the emerging Local Plan may have to be postponed.
The reason for this “indefinite delay” is that the original demographic and job growth data has been revised downwards; consequently further analysis, discussion and consultation with the Craven public and local organisations will be needed before a final draft can be published.
This is probably welcome news to the many organisations and individuals who have consistently argued over a long period that the target of 256 houses per year was incorrect, unnecessary and unachievable. Their views, which have been largely ignored by the Authority, now appear to have been vindicated.
However, it does raise significant questions as to the processes and time scales that the Council and Planning Department have put in place. Craven has a history of previous delays for exactly the same reason; changes in available data.
In comparison to nearby Authorities it is lagging far behind. This is despite Paul Shevlin, the Council's Chief Executive, stating in July 2014 that “in comparison to our neighbours the progress of our Local Plan is at a similar stage”. The four local authorities he used in the comparison, Bradford, Pendle, Richmondshire and Ribble Valley, have all had their Local Plans approved whilst Craven is back into consultation mode. Bradford's was approved in September 2016 but the other three were adopted around the end of 2014/early 2015.
To justify his misplaced optimism in Craven's progress, Mr Shevlin stated that in 2012 Craven “commissioned some population and household projections which were out of date soon after the report was published”. He goes on to state that it took “several months to prepare new projections that could be used to prepare the strategy and consult with our communities”.
By the time this new consultation had been completed, further demographic analysis was due to be published in September 2014 by the ONS (Office for National Statistics). Mr Shevlin observed that if this proved to be dramatically different then it would “require us to review the Draft Local Plan and re consult”. He goes on to comment that this “demonstrates the considerable time and costs that the process demands”. The September ONS figures were different but it could be argued that they were not all significantly so. However, the decision was made by the Authority to develop a new plan and have a further public consultation which resulted in the higher target of 256 houses. This is now about to be scrapped and the whole process started again.
All figures and projections are a snapshot in time and once they are compiled are, by definition, immediately out of date. However, they usually provide the best available information on which to make strategic decisions. Major infrastructure projects, such as HS2 for example, rely on point-in- time cost/benefit analysis as the basis for making long term decisions. The decisions can then be tweaked as new figures become available. However, such projects would never reach fruition if the Craven approach was to be followed and they were to be constantly delayed because the original data was now deemed to be out of date and, therefore, invalid.
It would appear that CDC is incapable of producing a Local Plan within a reasonable time frame. As the data changes, the authority always decides to go back to the drawing board instead of revising and using what it already has. Public consultations have taken place several times so if the new housing requirement is to be revised downwards then the obvious course of action by the Authority is to be decisive and pragmatic and simply remove a similar % of marginal sites across the Craven area. This would ensure that the Local Plan could be published quickly and would stop the unnecessary uncertainty that has been experienced over the last few years. Additionally it would minimise the considerable financial costs that the Craven ratepayer has to bear because the Authority has shown itself to be incapable of efficiently managing this project to a successful conclusion, unlike our neighbours.