Issue - meetings

To consider the report of the Deputy Chief Executive.

Agreed:

RECOMMENDED that Council support the scope, resourcing, timetable and governance arrangements set out in Section 8 of the report presented at the meeting, for preparing a non-statutory Joint Strategy for East Devon, Exeter, Mid Devon and Teignbridge Councils.

Reason for Decision: As set out in the report.

The Executive received the report which sought the formal agreement of the scope, resourcing, timetable and governance arrangements for preparing a non-statutory Joint Strategy for East Devon, Exeter, Mid Devon and Teignbridge Councils. The Joint Strategy was considered to be the most appropriate way of ensuring a co-ordinated approach for addressing strategic issues in the region, following the end of the work on the Greater Exeter Strategic Plan (GESP).

The Assistant Service Lead Local Plans made particular reference to:-

·        a previous report was presented to the Executive and Council in December 2020, which approved the involvement of the Council in the Joint Strategy work and the report presented moved the work forward;

·        the Strategy would be an informal, non-statutory document whilst the formal planning policy for Exeter would be provided by the Local Plan which was currently being prepared;

·        the scope of the Strategy would enable shared resourcing of evidence base which would also support the Local Plan;

·        the Strategy would act as a prospectus when bidding for infrastructure funding across the area;

·        a consultant would be engaged to prepare the Strategy and to work with officers from each Council enabling officer resources to be concentrated on the production of respective Local Plans, which were a priority for each Council;

·        the timetable included public consultation in the summer of 2022 with formal approval in October 2022 and the governance of the project remained within the remit of each authority to approve the document; and

·        consistent reports were currently going through each respective Council authority for approval.

Councillor D. Moore, as an opposition leader, welcomed the report which would co-ordinate action across the authorities but questioned if a short period of consultation across the summer holidays on key matter would be sufficient and suggested that the consultation timetable should be reviewed. She asked for information on the position of the LEP in this process which did not have a foreseen role in funding and that its future was in doubt, following the Government’s review of the LEP. This was considered a potential risk and which should be brought to the attention of Council.

The Portfolio Holder for City Development thanked the staff involved in the production of the GESP and excellent work that has come from the GESP, which she hoped would remain of value in the production of the Local Plan.

RECOMMENDED that Council support the scope, resourcing, timetable and governance arrangements set out in Section 8 of the report presented at the meeting, for preparing a non-statutory Joint Strategy for East Devon, Exeter, Mid Devon and Teignbridge Councils.