North West Leicestershire Council set to withdraw emerging Core Strategy following Inspector's concerns

The Inspector, Michael Hetherington, identified a number of concerns with the Council's emerging Core Strategy, principally in relation to the assessment of housing need, housing supply and the duty to cooperate.

The Inspector said he was concerned that the Leicester and Leicestershire Strategic Housing Market Assessment (2007/8) did not appear to reflect recent market conditions and did not cover the Plan period to 2031. He also noted that the Council is experiencing a substantial shortfall in housing land supply and that the emerging Core Strategy had not allocated any sites to address this. He is noted as commenting that the Council is approaching the preparation of the Plan "the wrong way round" and he emphasised that the Plan should follow from the evidence.

The Council disagreed with the Inspector's comments. “This is a disappointing result.  I do not think the council could have presented a more robust case today," said Councillor Trevor Pendleton, Portfolio holder for Planning. "Faced with such options from the inspector, the only responsible thing to do is to withdraw the plan – despite the vast amount of time and effort put in by councillors, council staff, voluntary groups, businesses and local people to develop the plan over the last few years."

The Inspector also raised doubts about the Council's compliance with its legal obligation to cooperate with other local planning authorities in relation to the preparation of the emerging Core Strategy. He is noted as stating that, at the time of the exploratory meeting, substantial differences remained between the Council and several other authorities. He said that if at the opening of the examination there was found to be a failure in the Council's duty to cooperate, then there would be little point in continuing the examination further.

A decision about how the council will proceed will be brought to the next full Council meeting on 29 October.