Concerns over four-year wait for county’s Local Development Plan

Elgan Hearn, Local Democracy Reporter

Concerns have been raised that a council’s new Local Development Plan (LDP) will not be in place for another four years at least.

At a Blaenau Gwent County Borough Council meeting on Wednesday, July 15, council chiefs set out the collaboration agreement which will see the council work with Torfaen council to produce a joint LDP – as well as agree the timeline for its implementation.

The last Blaenau Gwent LDP ended on December 31, 2021, which raised concerns that the council will have no grounds to refuse developments on open spaces – and any appeals against a refusal of planning permission could be approved as a result.

Blaenau Gwent planners have been working on a new LDP for several years and it suffered delays due to the Covid-19 pandemic.

But in March, Blaenau Gwent councillors agreed to scrap their own replacement LDP, in favour of forging a new joint LDP with Torfaen.

Opposition Independent group leader Cllr Wayne Hodgins (Brynmawr) said: “It says that it will take us until 2030 to adopt the plan. It seems a long time.”

Planning chief Paul McKim explained that this is a legal process that the councils need to follow.

“In terms of timescales, four years does seem like a long time, it’s realistic in terms of the steps that we need to go through.

“In England, you may be aware that the (UK) Government has brought that requirement down to two and a half years, and local authorities are struggling to meet that timetable.

“There may be opportunities to speed up depending on responses that we get to the proposals as they come forward.

“I imagine some will be welcomed and others not so welcomed in other parts of the community.”

Cllr Hodgins pointed out that the council had been working on producing placemaking plans that provide a blueprint on how to redevelop towns in the county borough.

Cllr Hodgins continued: “The timelines do concern me, if we are challenged on planning policy outside of a working LDP.

“It’s difficult as we have been working on an updated LDP which has now been rescinded – and we’re going back to the starting block.

“This could affect our future growth plans for housing, economic development and many other aspects.”

Planning policy officer Hayley Spender said: “The current LDP will remain as the extant plan for decision making.”

She added that placemaking proposals would “inform” the new LDP.

“Please don’t think we’re going off to do our own thing because it needs to be in conformity with other plans.”

Cllr Malcolm Cross (Labour – Sirhowy) said: “This particular ball has been up in the air for over 10 years.

“We have plenty of space in Blaenau Gwent to develop and we really need inward investment like a blood transfusion up here.

“The aspiration for our youngsters, whether it’s employment or home building, I just hope it doesn’t end up in the usual bureaucracy.

“I know the biggest thing for any development is to see it included in an LDP, but year after year we’ve kicked the can down the road.

“I hope this will be different.”

Joint Blaenau Gwent and Torfaen chief executive Steve Vickers told councillors the joint LDP will be spearheaded by Roger Allonby.

“We have appointed a new joint director for economy and place across both councils and he will be dealing with this piece of work – he’ll be joining us in October,” said Mr Vickers.

Councillors approved both the collaboration agreement and delivery agreement.

---

Get more trusted Welsh news

Choose Nation.Cymru as a preferred source in Google News to see more of our journalism.