Agenda and minutes

Local Development Plan Task Force - Tuesday, 26th July, 2022 7.00 pm

Venue: Committee Room 2, Civic Offices, New Road, Grays, Essex, RM17 6SL

Contact: Rhiannon Whiteley, Senior Democratic Services Officer  Email: direct.democracy@thurrock.gov.uk

Media

Items
No. Item

1.

Nomination of Chair

Additional documents:

Minutes:

Councillor Redsell was nominated and voted as Chair of the Local Development Plan Task Force for the 2022/ 2023 municipal year.

 

2.

Nomination of Vice-Chair

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Minutes:

Councillor Arnold was nominated and voted as Vice Chair of the Local Development Plan Task Force for the 2022/ 2023 municipal year.

 

3.

Minutes pdf icon PDF 264 KB

To approve as a correct record the minutes of the postponed Local Development Plan Task Force meeting of the 24 January 2022 held on 21March 2022

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Minutes:

The minutes from the Local Development Plan Task Force meeting of 24 January 2022 held on 21 March 2022 were approved as a true and correct record.

 

4.

Items of Urgent Business

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Minutes:

There were no items of urgent business.

 

5.

Declaration of Interests

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Minutes:

There were no interests declared.

 

6.

Thurrock Green and Blue Infrastructure Strategy Presentation pdf icon PDF 1 MB

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Minutes:

Doug McNab, Land Use Consultants Ltd (LUC) provided members with a presentation on Thurrock’s Green and Blue Infrastructure Strategy.

 

Doug McNab explained that LUC have been commissioned by the Council to update its green and blue infrastructure strategy.

 

Doug McNab started the presentation with explaining what green infrastructure is and why it is so important. He further explained that LUC prepared a draft Green and Blue Infrastructure Strategy for Thurrock back in 2019 but since that time there has been significant changes in terms of national policy and legislation. There have also been changes locally, the declaration of the climate emergency and proposals from wider South Essex strategic work such as the South Essex Estuary Park. LUC have been collating information on these changes to the planning context and to the baseline within Thurrock and they have been making recommendations on how to embed green infrastructure into policies in the emerging local plan. Doug McNab also highlighted that due to the Lower Thames Crossing proposals they need to re-visit the 2019 proposals.

 

Doug McNab explained that they would be reviewing the previous blue infrastructure proposals taking into account the Thames Estuary 2100 update which is all about managing flood risk from the Thames Estuary and also recent changes being proposed to designated wildlife sites.

 

Councillor Redsell asked if they were looking to open up the river as there is 18 miles of river in Thurrock and not much of it was easy to access.

 

Doug McNab responded that this was exactly the type of opportunity they will be identifying and looking to capitalise on as there is lots of evidence that access to water and green infrastructure has health and wellbeing benefits beyond other benefits such as natural flood risk management.

 

The Local Plans Manager responded that there are other pieces of evidence being completed to look at how we can increase accessibility to the river frontage and create a more positive relationship between our communities and the riverside. They will be looking at the recreational aspects of the river as well as its functions as an economic asset to the borough.

 

Councillor Redsell noted that the flats on Gray’s riverside look out on to the river but further on in Tilbury there is nothing. She also noted that Gravesend has done much more with their river front. She stressed that they needed to do something to give people the opportunity to be able to look out to the river.

 

Doug McNab also highlighted that with nationally significant infrastructure projects like the Lower Thames Crossing and National Grid Reinforcement project there will be funding coming from those for environmental mitigation and there is an opportunity for Thurrock to be quite ambitious and to be clear in what they want to see delivered so they can the make most of the variety of funding opportunities emerging.

Doug McNab confirmed the next steps will be a stakeholder engagement event to present some of the key findings from their initial data gathering and  ...  view the full minutes text for item 6.

7.

Thurrock Strategic Transport Model Presentation pdf icon PDF 1 MB

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Minutes:

This item has been postponed to the next meeting on 26 September as the presenter was unavailable to attend the meeting.

 

8.

Thurrock Local Plan Update Presentation pdf icon PDF 1 MB

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Minutes:

The Local Plans Manager provided the presentation on the Local Plan Update.

 

The Local Plans Manager confirmed that the existing local plan is 7 years old and she explained why it needed to be updated. The Local Plans Manager confirmed they will be completing some informal roadshow events in communities over the summer to capture what peoples’ priorities are in specific areas especially post-pandemic.

 

The Local Plans Manager confirmed that there are currently around 230 sites that have been shortlisted for a more detailed assessment.

 

Councillor Redsell requested if she could be provided with a list of the 230 sites shortlisted.

 

The Local Plans Manager confirmed they are very similar to the 2017 sites identified in the Housing Land Availability Assessment on the website but she will also try and get a list from David Lock Associates.

 

Councillor Redsell thanked the Local Plans Manager for the presentation and commented that she had a great knowledge of Thurrock.

 

Councillor Redsell queried if the infrastructure levy will go back into the ward where the houses are built.

 

The Local Plans Manager responded that they are still waiting for a lot more information on the infrastructure levy and how it is going to work in practice. The assumption is that it would fund infrastructure at all scales however the difficulty is there will only ever be so much money in the pot and the infrastructure development plan will be key in identifying priorities if there isn’t enough money in the pot.

 

Councillor Redsell commented that we are not very good in this country at putting infrastructure in first before developments. Councillor Redsell commented that lorry parks for example should be included in the local plan as we only have one and it was estimated 10 years ago that 4 were needed and people are complaining about lorries parked up in the area.

 

The Local Plan Manager agreed that infrastructure wasn’t just limited to residential areas but that there are also infrastructure impacts associated with economic growth too.

 

Councillor Redsell also queried if members can attend some of the meetings with the community.

 

The Local Plans Manager agreed this would be possible and she would also be providing feedback from the groups to members if they cannot attend.

 

Councillor Arnold commented that effectively we are going to have to build a lot of houses or the Government is going to force us to. He would like to see the right sites come available at the right time and with the right infrastructure in place.

 

The Local Plans Manager agreed that if we don’t plan to meet our needs then someone else will and that could be through Government intervention. If we don’t have an up-to-date plan in place we could get into a planning by appeal type situation. She explained that she would advocate for the Council taking control of the process and the local plan needs to respond to the challenges we are facing. The Local Plans Manager clarified that the plan isn’t  ...  view the full minutes text for item 8.

9.

Work Programme pdf icon PDF 89 KB

Additional documents:

Minutes:

The Thurrock Strategic Transport Model presentation will be moved to the next meeting on 26 September.

 

A Local Plan Update Presentation and the Infrastructure delivery plan will be added to the 26 September meeting.

 

The climate change item in September will need to be put back to a later meeting.

 

An item regarding the Task and Finish group for Flooding and Water could be added to the December meeting.