Independent Examinations

Withdrawal of Core Strategy and Mineral Resources DPDs from the Examination Process
As a result of advice received from the Planning Inspector appointed to examine the Core Strategy and Mineral Resources DPDs, Shropshire County Council has reluctantly decided that it has no choice but to request the Secretary of State to withdraw the plans from the Examination process.

The plans were prepared under the new planning arrangements introduced by the Planning and Compulsory Purchase Act 2004. Draft copies of the plans were submitted to the Secretary of State for independent examination of their ‘soundness’ in October 2006.

On 21 February 2007, an ‘exploratory meeting’ (see details below) was held with the Planning Inspector appointed to carry out the examination. This meeting was called because, on preliminary reading of the DPDs, and having regard to the representations particularly of the Government Office for the West Midlands, the Inspector considered there were concerns about their soundness. The purpose of the meeting was to provide an opportunity to explore these concerns and to enable the Council to consider the risk it might have of the documents being found to be unsound if the Examination continued. The notes of this meeting are available by following the relevant link on this page.

In light of its experience, the County Council has raised a number of serious concerns with both Government and the Planning Inspectorate. These relate to an apparent lack of consistency in the advice and guidance received by different local authorities and the inflexibility of the plan preparation process. The ability to rely on policies saved from existing ‘old style’ plans appears problematic and the particular issues raised by minerals and waste documents are not adequately addressed by existing guidance. The County Council is particularly concerned that these issues will further undermine confidence in the new planning process which will in turn generate further delays.

John Everall, Cabinet Member for Environment and Sustainability, said: “Local authorities must be able to have confidence in the advice and guidance concerning soundness which they receive from Government during earlier stages of the plan preparation process. This guidance must be consistent with the benchmark established by the Planning Inspectorate which is used to test the soundness of planning documents during examination. Unless this is achieved, other local authorities will share our experience of receiving definitive guidance about crucial soundness issues too late to do anything about them, thus requiring the process to be started again from the beginning.”

Shropshire County Council intends to submit a new plan preparation timetable, based on a pragmatic approach that will ensure that policy coverage is maintained.

The Inspector has issued a statement which describes the suspension of the examination process which can be viewed by following the relevant link on this page.

The Exploratory meeting
The Inspector for the examinations held an Exploratory Meeting at 9.30am on Wednesday 21 February 2007. The venue was:
Wilfred Owen Room
Shropshire County Council
Shirehall
Abbey Foregate
Shrewsbury
SY2 6ND

Following the submission of the DPDs and the start of the Inspector’s examination of the documents, the Inspector had carried out a preliminary read of the documents and the representations made in response to the submission stage public consultation. From this initial read of the submitted material, and in particular the representations of the Government Office for the West Midlands (GOWM), the Inspector considered that there were matters which appeared to raise preliminary concerns about the soundness of the document.

The Inspector therefore called an Exploratory Meeting to provide an opportunity to explore the matters about which he had concerns, and to enable the Council to consider the risk it might have of the documents being found to be unsound if the examination was continued.

The Exploratory Meeting was a public meeting, which was open for anyone to attend. The Inspector looked to representatives of the council and the Government Office to address him on the matters with which he was concerned. The format of the meeting was similar to a “Round Table Session” which the Inspector chaired, following an agenda that was circulated in advance.

A note of the Exploratory Meeting has been produced by the Inspector and can be downloaded by following the relevant link on this page.

Follow the links on this page to get more information on the exploratory meeting; the 'exploratory meeting letter of notification' was sent to all respondents by the Programme Officer on 25 January 2007; the 'matters for discussion note' gives more information on the agenda for this meeting and the issues to be discussed; and, the 'agenda for the exploratory meeting' gives more specific information on the matters for discussion.