East Devon had (or rather still has) an OLD Local Plan.  Originally, this went from 2006 to 2011 and was adopted on 19 July 2006.

Almost immediately it was agreed in 2006 and by law under the requirements of the Planning and Compulsory Purchase Act 2004, progress towards meeting the targets in that plan had to be agreed and published each year by each planning authority and progress (or lack of it) towards the targets had to be documented in the public domain every year.

At that time there was no such thing as the National Planning Policy Framework (NPPF) only other bureaucratic stuff such as the Devon Structure Plan (DSP) and its successor the Regional Spatial Strategy (RSS), which the NPPF eventually replaced.  The RSS gave a general idea of what was expected of the whole region in terms of housebuilding and employment and left it to individual councils to fulfil their part of these plans.

Let us take as our starting point the annual report published which covered the period 1 March 2007 to 30 April 2008 which can be found HERE (unless it is subsequently removed from the internet by EDDC) which details what progress was being made towards achieving targets in the current plan and the work being done towards its replacement document after 2011.

The document goes through the various policies in the Local Plan, the various sites that were picked out for development and whether there had been any change in status of such sites or whether any new sites were being considered.

Even at this point it should be noted that Cranbrook was already the main focus for development by EDDC – almost to the exclusion of other parts of the district and already (page 15,para 3.18) EDDC is talking not of East Devon but of the “greater Exeter” area.

Some highlights:

They noted that they had not yet completed a “Statement of Community Involvement” (i.e. how the public would be involved in changes to the plan) and that, in fact, this was significantly behind in its timetable.  No blame to be apportioned to the public yet then!

They noted that there was also “slippage” in formulating a new “core strategy” – the important vision central to a new Local Plan.

On page 24 they set out what they thought would be a workable timetable for drafting the replacement Local Plan for after 2011 and envisaged that the Core Strategy would be completed by the end of 2011 (it took until 2013).

A first round of consultation on Gypsy and Traveller sites (which Mr Thickett has thrown back at them) took place in 2008 and a second one was planned for 2009 with adoption in 2010.  One can see why Mr Thickett did not think that this was up to date enough.  Again, it was due for completion by the end of 2010.

Two of the conclusions of the document (page 28) make very interesting reading:

6 CONCLUSIONS

6.1 In conclusion it is considered that whilst some progress has been made on plan preparation it is recognised that slippage against LDS timetables has occurred. It is envisaged that the Local Development Scheme will need to be revised in the future to reflect more realistic schedules and timetables.

6.2 It is recognised that this AMR only presents an overview of the District through a limited range of contextual indicators and against Government Core Output Indicators. It is considered that data deficiencies exist and these will need to be addressed in future years.

So, there we are:  it is 2008, our Local Plan expires in around 3 years and we are already behind in sorting out its replacement.  However, we have a vision for Cranbrook where we see ourselves as part of the “Greater Exeter” area and where much of our interest lies.

Tomorrow we will look at the report for the next year.  Will it catch up?  Will Cranbrook still be flavour of the decade?  Let’s see.