Welcome to the spring 2024 planning newsletter for the South Downs National Park Authority. There are beautiful blankets of bluebells across the National Park at this time of the year and, while it's still a little chilly, the scents of spring are in the air. This gem of a photo was taken by Lloyd Lane, at Wepham Woods, near Arundel.

UPDATES FROM PLANNING POLICY

Claire Tester, Planning Policy Manager, gives an update on key developments in policy.

In the last newsletter we announced the publication of our Housing and Economic Development Needs Assessment which can be viewed here.
Since then the team has been working hard to finalise the Land Availability Assessment, which assesses over 800 sites across the National Park for their suitability to meet these housing and other development needs. This work is progressing well and we hope to publish our findings in June.

If you would like to receive notifications and updates on the progress of the Local Plan Review and other planning policy matters, please email planningpolicy@southdowns.gov.uk with your full name and contact information and we will add you to our consultation database. Further details about the Local Plan Review can be found here.
We are also planning some public engagement in June/July so people can have early input into:

• the scope and timetable for the Local Plan Review and the key issues for it to address;
• how the Local Plan Review can contribute to delivering the vision for the National Park and its corporate priorities of climate action, nature recovery and a National Park for all;
• how they want to be engaged in subsequent stages of the process including consulting on a revised Statement of Community Involvement.

Further details of this engagement and the documents to be consulted on are available in this report under item 8.
In other planning policy news:

• We have received a positive Inspectors’ report on the East Sussex Minerals and Waste Local Plan Partial Review, and the National Park Authority along with East Sussex County Council and Brighton & Hove City Council, will be considering reports recommending the adoption of this Plan over the next few months. This is the last stage of a process which started in 2017, involved a number of public consultations and a robust examination of the Local Plan by the Planning Inspectorate.
• The Hampshire Minerals and Waste Local Plan Partial Review: pre-examination consultation took place between 9 January and 5 March 2024. Representations are currently being processed prior to submitting them and the Plan and supporting documents to the Planning Inspectorate for examination.
• The Rottingdean Neighbourhood Development Plan passed its examination and referendum and was formally ‘made’ (adopted) by the National Park Authority in March 2024.
• Bramshott & Liphook Neighbourhood Development Plan has been submitted for examination and a pre-examination consultation was carried out between 11th March and 23rd April 2024.
• The Selbourne Village Design Statement was consulted on between 1st February and 15th March 2024 and was adopted at Planning Committee in April as a Supplementary Planning Document.
• A revised version of the Technical Advice Note on Extensions and Replacement Dwellings has been published here. This takes account of legal advice to ensure that it is consistent with the wording of policies SD30 and SD31.

Last few days to nominate!

Planning agents, developers, builders, landowners and community groups are being urged to get their nominations in as the clock counts down to the deadline for the South Downs Design Awards. The deadline is 30 April and nominating is simple and straightforward.

Submit your nomination here.

Useful updates on BNG

Dr Lynsey Robinson, Ecology Planning Lead, gives her latest lowdown on Biodiversity Net Gain and how to navigate the changes.

Read her advice here.

The latest on Rampion 2

The National Park Authority is a statutory consultee on plans to extend the Rampion offshore wind farm. Vicki Colwell, Principal Planning Officer, shares an update.

Awards celebrate heritage

The very best buildings showcasing architecture, high-quality craftsmanship and conservation techniques will be celebrated once again this year in the Sussex Heritage Trust awards. Find out more.

Chaplaincy gets renovation

A critical site for helping vulnerable people has been improved after £92,000 of CIL funding.

Find out more here.

Boost for LPAs around water neutrality

Katharine Stuart, Planning Policy Lead, gives an update on a funding boost that will ease current burdens in areas affected by water neutrality rules.

We’re working with other Local Planning Authorities on a local authority-led water offsetting scheme for the areas affected by Natural England's water neutrality position statement within the Sussex North Water Resource Zone.

This scheme is called the Sussex North Offsetting Water Scheme, or SNOWS. The scheme will support developers in obtaining water offset ‘credits’ to enable local plan supported development to come forward, helping to ease the current burdens in place.

To help support this work, led by Horsham District Councils, the LPAs for the affected area submitted a bid to the DLUHC’s Planning Skills Delivery Fund.

This is a £29m fund intended to provide support to local authorities to help clear backlogs of planning applications and address skills gaps.

In December, the authorities were pleased to be advised that we had been successful with our bid.

We were awarded £250,000 of ‘skills gap’ funding to support the delivery of the SNOWS scheme through the next 12-18 months, after which the scheme should be self-financing. This funding is very welcome, and the authorities are grateful to DLUHC and Defra colleagues for their support with our bid. The National Park Authority would like to thank Clark Gordon, the Water Neutrality Project Manager and colleagues at Horsham District Council, for leading this bid.

If you would like to stay up to date on the development of SNOWS, you can subscribe to the SNOWS newsletter via the following link.

Dates for the diary

The next Planning Committee meetings will be held on 13 June and 11 July.

You can watch the meetings on-demand for up to six months after the meeting through our webcasting portal.

You can look at previous and upcoming agendas on the website here.