Issue - meetings

To consider the head of planning’s report. 

Cabinet considered the head of planning’s report on the Oxfordshire Spatial Plan, also known as the Joint Statutory Spatial Plan.  The report sought approval of:

·         the Local Development Scheme, which set out the timetable for the plan’s production;

·         the draft Statement of Community Involvement for public consultation; and 

·         the Scoping Document, setting out the role of the spatial plan. 

The Cabinet member for planning outlined the role of the spatial plan and the documents under consideration.  The spatial plan would set out the strategic plan for Oxfordshire but would not set out the detail.  Cabinet called for meaningful consultation on the draft spatial plan. 

In response to the draft documents under consideration, Cabinet noted that the head of planning would meet his counterparts at the other Oxfordshire principal councils to suggest some points of clarification to improve the documents; these are set out in the addendum to these minutes.  In particular, he suggested that the wording of the scoping document in the first sentence of paragraph 3.10 should be amended to read: ‘Whilst the Joint Statutory Spatial Plan will determine the spatial strategy and strategic growth areas, it will not allocate sites except at the request of the relevant local planning authority’.  Cabinet concurred with this suggestion. 

RESOLVED: to

(a)     approve the Local Development Scheme for the Joint Statutory Spatial Plan (as set out in Appendix 1 to the head of planning’s report to Cabinet on 27 September 2018); 

(b)     approve the draft Statement of Community Involvement 2018 (as set out in Appendix 2 to the head of planning’s report to Cabinet on 27 September 2018) for the Joint Statutory Spatial Plan for a six-week period of formal public consultation; 

(c)     approve the Joint Statutory Spatial Plan’s Scoping Document (as set out in Appendix 3 to the head of planning’s report to Cabinet on 27 September 2018); and

(d)     authorise the head of planning, in agreement with the other Oxfordshire councils’ equivalent, to make any necessary minor and presentational changes to the draft Local Development Scheme 2018 and draft Joint Statutory Spatial Plan Scoping Document before publication, and the draft Statement of Community Involvement 2018 before formal consultation commences.