LDP - Cardiff Council's experience

Cardiff Council has taken the unprecedented step of withdrawing its Local Development Plan following criticism of many of its key elements by Welsh Assembly Government planning inspectors. It has cancelled the public hearing into the Plan, which was due to start in May.

The Planning Inspectorate raised concerns over several facets of the LDP including flood risk, waste and transport issues as well as the housing strategy which was criticised for lack of provision for family housing, too heavy a reliance on brownfield and windfall sites and a concentration on four major locations across the city, some of which were at serious risk of flooding

The council claimed that it “has sought to produce a sustainable plan that allocates new development within existing urban limits. This aims to continue the very successful regeneration of the city that has brought significant social, economic and environmental benefits. The approach has secured strong cross-party political support, wider backing in the community and very much represents the democratic vision for the future growth of the city.”

As many Councils throughout Wales are saying, the new LDP process is proving to be costly, time consuming, over complex and alien to participants including the public. Worryingly the Welsh Assembly are at fault too in not providing an effective regional context - the Wales Spatial Plan has failed to provide an appropriate context for LDPs. Cardiff at least feels that the new planning system is failing in its aims of delivering sustainable, strategic, fast, and easier to understand LDPs.

Like most Welsh Planning Authorities, including not unsurprisingly, Powys and Ceredigion, the old style Development Plans are now well past their sell by date and do not provide an adequate planning policy basis for modern times. Despite the Welsh Assembly Government's insistence that it is keen to secure up-to-date local development plan coverage in Wales in order to provide certainty for infrastructure providers, communities, investors and others, their own policies fail to provide the regional framework necessary and Welsh planning authorities continue to work in a vacuum.

Mind you, over the border in England, there have been countless authorities who have withdrawn their Local Development Frameworks (LDFs as opposed to LDPs in Wales). It appears that few local authorities have managed to base their Local Development Plans or LDFs on "sound evidence base" - an essential ingredient to demonstrate that such plans can deliver what is needed for the particular area. The reduction in capacity of planning authorities during the current climate of efficiency savings and cuts does not of course help.