One of the most important roles for district councillors is to ensure that the district enables the delivery of suitable homes for its residents.
Control of the development process to ensure local needs are addressed and appropriate conditions on development are applied relies on the district having an approved or sound local plan, following appropriate review and independent examination. The lack of an approved plan gives green light to developers to come forward with their own plans in locations to suit them with the facilities they decide, greatly reducing local input and greatly reduced ability to ensure developments meet local needs.
The production of the plans for Teignbridge for the period 2020-2040 (5 years late) came before the Lib Dem controlled council to approve the final addendum which is due to be submitted for public consultation prior to formal submission to the government examiner.
Teignbridge officers came forward with plans that addressed all of the 1000's of local questions and identified those locations that best met the future needs of communities across the district with developments places closest to local amenities, best access and communications etc. It also identified to needs of all of the major centres within Teignbridge and came forward with the most suitable locations to provide homes these areas would require by 2040.
After a detailed presentation of why the various areas had been selected and the required actions to address any resulting issues the amended plans were rejected by the Lib Dem block vote who ensured that no plans were allowed in the majority of wards where their councillors sit, resulting in no provision in Dawlish, Teignmouth Ipplepen and Kenford to meet their growing needs.
The revised plans will be open for public examination over the next 6 weeks before the plans are submitted for examination for soundness by a government inspector who will want to know why some of our major settlements are not planning to meet future housing need through the new plans. and therefore the plan could fail resulting in an open season for developers.
The reason this is important is that over the next 20 years, the projected growth in the number of local residents and increased numbers of households equates to the present number of children living in Teignbridge since 2010, They will need homes by 2040 so I now question how the children of Dawlish, Teignmouth Ipplepen etc will find homes close to where they grew up.
Phil Bullivant
https://teignbridge.public-i.tv/core/portal/webcast_interactive/814639/start_time/1615000