Residents, businesses and developers will be able to take part in a citywide consultation on Part Two of the City Plan, starting 30 June.
Part Two follows on from the recently adopted City Plan Part One which set out the overarching planning strategy for accommodating growth in the city, including the city’s housing target and employment land requirements to 2030.
The City Plan Part Two will contain the remaining development site allocations to meet the identified development needs and detailed policies that will be used to assess planning applications in the city.
This initial round of consultation will be asking people what planning matters they think should be included in the Plan, from how to make sure housing sites deliver a good mix of housing; how best to manage the range of retail uses in shopping centres so they remain attractive places to shop and visit; to how to ensure new development helps create well designed places. It will be asking people if they have sites they wish the council to consider allocating for development in the Plan.
City Plan Part Two will take around three years to complete. The aim is to streamline the number of development management policies, making them easier to understand and simplifying the process for those applying for planning permission. For example, at the moment there are six policies relating to shop fronts and it is suggested that these will be combined into one policy.
The City Plan Part Two Scoping Paper is divided into 12 topic areas, so people will be able to go straight to the area they are interested in. These are housing; economy and employment; retail and town centre uses; tourism; transport and travel; biodiversity and open spaces; pollution, water and energy resources; design; heritage; community facilities; student accommodation and traveller accommodation.
Councillor Julie Cattell, lead member for planning strategy, said: “This first part of the consultation is to gauge people’s views about the scope of the document, whether there are any particular issues that people consider important to be addressed by planning policies and a ‘call for sites’. It’s important that people take part because their contributions will feed into the draft City Plan Part Two that will be published next year.
“We have not identified specific sites at this stage but people can put forward sites for inclusion. City Plan Part Two will provide greater certainty and include local policies to address local issues such as how to secure family-sized housing and how best to address the further demand for purpose built student accommodation. Sites put forward during this consultation stage will be assessed by the council as part of preparing the draft Plan and will be subject to further consultation.”
The draft plan will set out in more detail how to provide the 13,200 homes that are needed in the city.
Consultation will run for 12 weeks. From 30 June you can take part online at http://www.brighton-hove.gov.uk/cityplan-part2 by email planningpolicy@brighton-hove.gov.uk or by writing to City Plan Part 2, Scoping Document Planning Policy, Brighton & Hove City Council, Room 201, Kings House, Grand Avenue, Hove, BN3 2LS.