Wivenhoe Green Party

The new Local Development Framework (LDF) Core Strategy is an over-arching planning policy for Colchester Borough. It has now been through all stages of public consultation (including Public Examination) and the final version has been produced. The next steps are for subsidiary policies be developed and adopted covering more specific issues such as Development Policies and Site Allocations which will go through the same stages of public consultation.

The inspectors report on Colchester Borough Council's core strategy was published in October, and CBC have produced the final version of the core strategy, incorporating all of the required changes.

Generally it looks like an acceptable result when it comes to the common concerns expressed by Wivenhoe residents regarding over-development and protecting the Green Break. It is always possible that there may be some issues of concern hidden in the detail.

In summary, for those interesting in the details, the findings relevant to the concerns raised by Cllr Chris Fox at the public examination (on behalf of Wivenhoe Town Council) are as follows.

Coastal Protection Belt

The inspector required that the Coastal Protection Belt be mentioned in one of the environmental policies (NE1, renamed ENV1) and added to one of the Key Diagrams (KD1).

This addresses a specific concern that we and others raised at various points in the process. This will help to defend the Wivenhoe Green Break, and areas to the south of Wivenhoe from excessive development, as these are all included in the Coastal Protection Belt.

Green Breaks

The inspector asked for any reference to Areas of Landscape Conservation Importance and Green Breaks to be deleted from relevant policies (NE1/ENV1, KD1, KD2) and related text, and instead required CBC to provide a "criteria based policy" to deal with landscape protection.

On the face of it this might look bad for the future of the Wivenhoe Green Break, which was given specific protection in earlier drafts, but in context, it is probably fine. As we understand it, the idea for the green break(s) is that the relevant boundaries will be determined in the Spatial Strategy. The inclusion of Coastal Belt Protection in the key diagrams should balance out any loss of specific mention of green breaks in the policy itself. If the forthcoming Spatial Strategy proposes the envelope of Wivenhoe remain as it is, or slightly smaller to exclude certain anomalous areas (e.g. near the two schools), as has been suggested by WTC councillors, then that should remove any lingering concerns.

Eastern Park and Ride

The inspector required deletion of reference to the East Park and Ride site from the text and relevant Key Diagrams (KD2).

Her comments on this specific policy were broadly in line with observations made by Cllr Chris Fox and others at the Public Examination. The plan may continue to be an "aspiration" for some point after 2016. The inspector in general encourages the development of park and ride for dealing with congestion (although we would argue that the evidence for this is rather thin, and CBC's own motivation for Park and Ride includes increasing the number of visitors). But the Eastern proposal appeared insufficiently worked out for anything specific to be mentioned in a strategic document. In her more detailed comments she supports the case that we made that there has been insufficient analysis of the potential "knock on effects" of an Eastern Park And Ride -- e.g. on rail travel. She notes that the Local Transport Plan calls for signalling and station improvements.

The Next Steps

Following the formal adoption of this Core Strategy, Colchester Borough Council will be working on other related policy documents. These include Spatial Strategy, which determines how different areas of land are to be used in the borough, and Development Policies, which will guide how individual planning applications are to be considered. As always, your Green Party councillors will continue to work with others to ensure that these policies work in the interests of Wivenhoe residents and the environment.