The town council will be asked next Monday, December 5, to approve the current draft of our Neighbourhood Plan, for submission to Rother District Council (RDC) for a legal compliance check and formal public consultation.
The final version of the plan would then be voted on in a local referendum but, in the meantime, RDC has produced a massive report on housing needs and appears to be ignoring other Neighbourhood Plans – drafted, but not yet approved by a referendum.
Nationally and locally housing targets set by the Government, particularly for affordable homes meeting the needs of young families and the elderly, are not being met, although locally homes are still being built in Valley Park off the Udimore Road (pictured above).
However, planning permissions have been varied at each stage of the Valley Park development, with increasingly bigger homes being built, not necessarily meeting local needs or being affordable, and more homes being crammed in.
A Neighbourhood Plan sets out local planning policies and identifies how land is used and determines what should be built where. A number of local town and parish councils have been developing such plans.
However, they need to accommodate the number of houses which national government wants built, and local draft plans are doing this.
But RDC recently ignored a local draft plan for Sedlescombe, approving an application for 16 homes on a site not in the draft plan – and despite objections from at least four other councils saying this undermined the principle of local neighbourhood plans. A complaint was also made nationally about Rother’s action.
RDC has also just produced a 370 page Development and Site Allocation Local Plan (DaSa Plan) , two years after its Core Strategy recognised the need for one – and Rye’s Plan now has to take this into account. However DaSa does take into account which areas are developing Neighbourhood Plans and which are not.
On Monday, November 28, Anthony Kimber, Vice-Chair of the local plan’s steering group, told the town’s Planning Committee about the DaSa Plan and said it did not seem to conflict with the town’s plan – but a response would be needed on a range of issues.
However, councillors were concerned about this massive last minute report after two to three years’ work in Rye on the town’s plan, and were confused about RDC’s overall handling of planning permissions.
The RDC is now allowing the public to address their planning committee, within very strict limits, although RDC’s officers appear to deal with around 90% of the planning applications, without them going to the committee.
In those circumstances some town councillors thought there was not much point in their council considering and commenting on contentious applications, and it might be better to encourage public petitions, to force RDC’s Planning Committee to consider applications their officers may well just tick through.
The latest version of Rye’s plan can be found at www.ryeneighbourhoodplan.org.uk .
Photo: Rye News Library