CDC's Draft Core Stragegy

What is a Draft Core Strategy Document?

The Draft Core Strategy is a document which has been compiled by the planning department at Chiltern District Council. Every council in the country is required to build a Core Strategy Document to abide by our central government’s new planning laws. These laws require each council to prove that they have sufficient available building land to ensure delivery of their quota of new housing by 2026. It may be that many of these new houses have already been built and that many others are expected to be built on ‘windfall’ sites (land that is made available through day to day building development opportunities). However our councils are now required to prove that they can deliver these houses and must demonstrate the sites in their Core Strategy Documents.

The LDF 

A Local Development Framework or LDF is the collection of documents comprising the Core Stategy and it’s supporting documents: housing delivery document; evidence based documents etc. These are all necessary pieces of the jigsaw that our District Council must build to prove to us and the government inspector that they have done their research and planned the future of our towns and villages in the best and most sustainable way possible. 

The options in the Draft Core Strategy must first undergo comprehensive district-wide open public consultation, this is the most vital part of the exercise as it is the residents who will have to live with the decisions that are made. Once a way forward has been established the policies and plans for the future of the district can then be formed. Further public consultations will go to confirm public confidence in the document before finally being submitted to the inspector who will judge the Core Strategy for ‘soundness’.

It is only when a Core Strategy has been passed that it can start to influence planning law, until then planning decisions can only be judged on existing planning law. This is an important point because the agents for the Sisters of the Holy Cross, Gerald Eve, have based their entire planning application on an emerging core strategy that is not relevant and as the following paragraph explains, is very unlikely to become law in it’s present state.

 

CDC’s Draft Core Strategy Document

Chiltern District Council have decided not to abide by government directives on correct LDF implementation procedure. Indeed our Parish Council only became aware of the the Draft Core Strategy in June 2009. For a document that is supposed to be specifically borne from public involvement, embracing the concerns and desires of the districts residents, they have fallen particularly short of the LDF requirements. Behind closed doors, our district councillors have cynically devised four options and dismissed three of them as not viable, surely a non-viable option is not an option then? They tell us that they held a consultation, indeed, it was unpublicised, only 80 people in the village answered the questionnaire, the results of this consultation were ignored and further, the leader of the council and his chief planning officer decided to override the votes of the committee and chose option 3 anyway - one of the less popular routes which will target the expansion of Amersham, Chesham, Chalfont St Peter and Little Chalfont. 

With the help of the residents of Chalfont St Peter SENSE4CSP have forced Chiltern District to reduce numbers slightly. CDC have also conceded that they need to hold a district-wide survey, though amazingly after the main decisions have already been made, so everyone is wondering what this consultation is for and what CDC are going to do with the results.

It is now clear that the future of the whole district has been set out by three people: Cllr John Warder, Cllr Nick Rose and Carol Castle, with absolutely no influence from their constituents - how can this be democratic? It seems that the district’s future is at the mercy of an old boys club working to their own agendas.

The Draft Core Strategy is unlikely to pass inspection due to it’s desperately poor consultation processes and severely lacking supporting documentation, not to mention the host of contradictory statements and half truths. However in order to stop this council sponsored vandalism, we will still need to bring our outrage to the attention of the inspector and hence, we we must continue our fight for fair treatment.