Clause 16 - Local development documents
Planning and Compulsory Purchase Bill
3:30 pm
Mr Tony McNulty (Parliamentary Under-Secretary, Office of the Deputy Prime Minister; Harrow East, Labour)
I simply do not agree with that. With the local development scheme and the local development documents inside and outside the development plan, and with the other elements in the clause that will prescribe what comprises the local development documents that are part of the development plan, I feel that the proposals for the ways in which applications for planning permission will principally be judged in any area action plans involving major change or conservation will, by the time everything is explained through regulation as well as through the Bill, give greater clarity, speed and flexibility to a planning system that is rooted in a wider spatial dimension that goes beyond land use. As I have said before, the Bill will also set out the matters to which the planning authority must have regard when preparing the LDD. We must not forget the sustainability appraisals that must govern the proposals in each of the local development documents; or the requirement for LDDs generally to conform with the regional spatial strategy or the spatial development strategy in London; or the requirement for the authority to prepare an annual monitoring report on the implementation of the local
development scheme; or the provision for authorities to work together, which we will come to shortly.
The hon. Gentleman is entirely right to suggest that the local development documents are a key element of the Bill and the new system. However, with all that is in clause 16 and subsequent clauses, I firmly believe that the regional spatial strategy and local development framework two-tier planning system will work effectively. I commend the clause to the Committee.
Question put and agreed to.
Clause 16 ordered to stand part of the Bill.