The inspector recommended that the Council withdraw the plan, modify it and resubmit it as he said it was likely to be found "unfit for purpose", according to a report by Planning Resource. He said that the Council's site selection was "inconsistent" and that the plan was "too simplistic".
The GAAP (102-page / 4.63MB PDF), which was submitted to the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government for examination in December last year, set out the Council's visions and objectives for Grantham for the next 15 years. The plan set out a strategy for providing 5,529 homes during that period to meet the Council's Core Strategy target of building 7,680 new dwellings between 2006 and 2026.
The inspector first raised concerns about the site selection issue in February this year. He sent a note (3-page / 83KB PDF) to the Council questioning the basis on which the site selection process had been undertaken. At the time the inspector said he had seen "no objective evidence to explain why some Local Service Centres have been chosen to receive housing allocations whilst others have not." In addition, he had said that all of the assessment criteria used to reach those housing allocation decisions had appeared to have been given the "same weight", despite some of the criteria leading to assessment being made on a subjective basis.
Following this the Council submitted a list of modifications to the GAAP. However, the inspector said he thought the proposed modifications were insufficient to address his concerns.
