Housing and regeneration plan faces ‘bureaucratic nightmare’

SENIOR politicians in a Yorkshire district have admitted they have faced a “bureaucratic nightmare” in drawing up new planning laws while coping with multi-million pound development.

Selby District Council has been embroiled in a protracted saga to instigate new planning rules as it battles to counter the ongoing economic slump.

The authority is having to undertake a major revision of its action plan for development after concerns were raised by a Government-appointed planning inspector over house-building targets and whether green belt land would be encroached on.

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The revised proposals are due to go before the planning inspector in the autumn for a third session before it is hoped the plan could be adopted by the end of the year.

However, the authority is already facing up to massive pressures on its planning department with schemes such as the £300m Olympia Park project.

The regeneration scheme to transform derelict land to the north of Selby and create 1,000 new homes and more than 2,000 jobs is one of the biggest developments the district is likely to witness this century.

Selby District Council’s executive member with responsibility for place shaping, Coun John Mackman, claimed the national overhaul of planning policies will ultimately provide a more streamlined approach for development.

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But he added: “It is an extremely complicated and expensive process, and it has been a bureaucratic nightmare.

“We want to show that the Selby district is open for business, especially in the current economic climate.

“But it is no good for the Selby district or the country as a whole if there is no house-building and developers do not know if they can develop.

“In the long-term, I would hope that the planning process will be easier for people to understand and use, but in the short-term we have been faced with huge challenges.”

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The council has announced it is dealing with the latest phase of one of the most contentious elements of its planning policy by trying to provide more pitches for travellers.

The authority is having to develop a 15-year strategy to accommodate travellers across the district, and several acres of land on Burn Airfield have been identified as key to addressing the demand for pitches.

It is hoped up to 15 pitches will be created on the airfield, and the council has agreed to approach the Homes and Communities Agency, which owns the land. Another part of the airfield already provides 15 pitches, with another 12 pitches located in Carlton.

The Yorkshire Post revealed in June that a planning application had been submitted to the council for the Olympia Park development. The Tory MP for Selby and Ainsty, Nigel Adams, claimed the scheme will be a “game changer” for the district helping to transform its economy.

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But the council has been faced with a lengthy and costly fight to instigate new planning regulations under the Government’s overhaul of national laws.

Ministers announced in March details of the National Planning Policy Framework, which replaces previous national house-building targets.

Selby District Council has spent £1.5m over the last five years on its Core Strategy, which will now have to be adapted to fit the new national framework.

The Core Strategy, which sets out a development blueprint for the area up to 2026, was suspended in October last year following an independent two-week hearing into the document.

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The planning inspector acknowledged concerns from Yorkshire’s oldest brewery, Samuel Smith’s, and others that the council expanding into green-belt land to meet housing targets, and excessive growth planned for Tadcaster, represented deficiencies in the plan.