Council and democracy

Agenda and minutes

Venue: Committee Room 1, Civic Offices, New Road, Grays, Essex, RM17 6SL. View directions

Contact: Wendy Le, Democratic Services Officer  Email: direct.democracy@thurrock.gov.uk

Items
No. Item

17.

Minutes pdf icon PDF 1 MB

To approve as a correct record the minutes of the Local Development Plan Task Force meeting held on 4 November 2019.

Minutes:

The minutes of the Local Development Plan Task Force held on 4 November 2019 was approved as a true and correct record.

18.

Items of Urgent Business

Minutes:

There were no items of urgent business.

19.

Declaration of Interests

Minutes:

There were no declarations of interest.

20.

Thurrock Local Plan - Design Charrette Process pdf icon PDF 83 KB

Additional documents:

Minutes:

Paulette McAllister, Joseph Hardy Representative, gave a presentation to accompany the report provided within the agenda. The presentation focused on the Aveley Design Charrette process which the Council had been undertaking in association with the Princes Foundation and Ministry for Housing, Communities and Local Government (MHCLG). The work looked at piloting the development of a design led process for engaging with local communities in planning for the future development in their local areas. Following on from an evaluation of the outcome of the Aveley pilot, it were proposed that the Design Charrette process be rolled out across the rest of the Borough as key informant to the development of a community-led Local Plan.

 

The Chair noted that throughout the presentation, several references had been made to Aveley being a village. She commented that Aveley was a village but it was now ‘split’ into individual parts due to developments in the area and was no longer ‘seen’ by some residents as a whole village.

 

The Chair continued on and said that the roads in Aveley were becoming dangerous particularly for children in the school area and it was a good idea to incorporate a walkway but it was important to build in the right places.

 

Noting the closed session workshop mentioned within the presentation, the Vice-Chair questioned the timeframe that would have been for the consolidation of information to take place if it had not been for the General Election during that period. Paulette McAllister answered that the consolidation process would have taken three weeks.

 

The Vice-Chair went on to ask what changes residents had asked for during the open session workshops and whether there were any examples. Paulette McAllister explained that with the closed session workshops, discussions had taken place with landlords and agents on how their existing owned sites could be used. With the open session workshops, the focus for most people had been the village in the sense that people wanted a good high street but the village had to incorporate other isolated parts of the area into the village as a whole. However, small steps had to be taken during the process.

 

Noting the attendance for the consultation sessions, the Vice-Chair suggested arranging other suitable dates and times to enable more people to attend. He suggested avoiding special events and potentially arranging evening consultations to capture people who would be working during the day.

 

Councillor Jefferies commented that the Enquiry by Design process was a good idea and a good way to engage with the community. He queried if there had been any feedback from residents on the process and thought it would be good to hold meetings soon after a consultation had taken place. He went on to question whether the local elections to be held in May 2020 would affect the design process.

 

Regarding residents’ feedback, Paulette McAllister said that the team had listened to all feedback from residents and that the focus of the consultation was to listen to residents and talk with residents.  ...  view the full minutes text for item 20.

21.

Work Programme pdf icon PDF 53 KB

Minutes:

The Committee discussed the work programme and the following items were added to the next meeting on 9 March 2020:

 

  • Lakeside Design Frame
  • Timeframe for the Delivery of the Local Plan

 

There was a suggestion made for Sports Facilities within the Local Plan to be added to the work programme as an external body had asked for this to be considered as part of the Local Plan. It was agreed that Officers would look into this before deciding to bring to the Task Force.