Durham City Neighbourhood Plan

Public exhibition on the Milburngate House regeneration plans, 17th February 2016, 12 noon to 7 pm, Radisson Blu Hotel.

Project information: http://www.durhamriversiderenewal.co.uk/ (available from 17th Feb)

The Durham City Neighbourhood Planning Forum will be holding its AGM on Friday 18^th March, 6pm, in the Committee Room, The Miners’ Hall, Redhills, Durham City. Members of the public are welcome to observe proceedings.

A meeting has been organised by the ‘Friends of the Durham Green Belt’.

Green Belt Under Threat – Again?

Professor Anne Power of the London School of Economics will address planning and housing policy for the green setting of our historic city.

Tuesday 16^th February, 7.30pm, Durham Town Hall.

Free. All welcome.

Please send questions to:

The Forum has responded to Durham County Council’s ‘Draft Durham City Sustainable Transport Strategy and Action Plan 2015-30’. A number of stakeholder meetings were held and the people attending these meetings had the opportunity to respond to the draft. An amended draft in the light of these responses will then be put out to public consultation later in 2016.

The NPF’s response to the Council’s Draft Sustainable Transport Strategy welcomed the general thrust of the document and the recognition of the significance of the Neighbourhood Plan alongside the County Plan. Particularly positive aspects of the document were:

• The recognition that Durham is a compact, walk-able city.
• That the economic future of Durham City will be built on the quality of its environment.
• The need to improve air quality in the city centre.
• That the car cannot meet the growing demand for travel and that walking, cycling and public transport need to be prioritised.

However, there is a central weakness in the strategy: the reliance on the construction of a Northern Relief Road to resolve the perceived problems of traffic congestion in the city centre. The current harmful levels of air pollution in the city centre are an immediate problem and we cannot afford to wait 15 years to tackle it. All the measures to promote sustainable transport contained in this strategy must be pursued urgently and effectively to improve air quality much sooner.

The Forum will provide a detailed, technical response for the subsequent public consultation.

We have written our Vision for the Durham City Plan, based on people’s comments from the public consultation:

Durham City’s potential as a beautiful and historic City will be realised through policy and action to improve and protect its qualities and by creating a diverse and resilient economy with attractive and affordable places to live. It will be supported by modern infrastructure and enriched by community engagement in its future.

This leads on to the six themes we are using to develop the Plan’s policies:

• Theme 1 – A beautiful and historic City
• Theme 2 – A City with a diverse and resilient economy
• Theme 3 – A City with attractive and affordable places to live
• Theme 4 – A City with modern infrastructure
• Theme 5 – A City with enriched community life
• Theme 6 – A City with a sustainable future, which will be a cross-cutting aspect to be covered in all the themes, particularly Themes 2, 3 and 4.

The Vision is a draft one, which may change in the light of people’s further comments. What do you think?

The Durham City NPF has responded to the Government’s consultation paper on changes to the National Planning Policy Framework.You can read our response here. We consider that much of the proposed changes to national policy should be welcomed. The emphases on developing brownfield land and small sites are especially relevant and important in Durham City. The key points in our response are:

• The proposed changes on affordable housing would seem to make it more difficult for local authorities and neighbourhood plans to foster more balanced and sustainable communities.
• We are delighted that the significance of the green belt policy is recognised; we are fortunate that Durham City has one of the 14 existing green belts in the country. Our green belt is of paramount importance to Durham City and to County Durham.
• We applaud the proposed substantial weight to be given to the benefits of using brownfield land for housing. However, that development must be in sustainable locations. Regeneration of our town and villages requires not only a ‘presumption in favour of development’ on suitable brownfield land but also financial mechanisms to equalise the costs of developing such land.
• In particular we welcome proposals that promote the use of small sites and unidentified ‘windfall’ sites within existing settlement boundaries, particularly where these are well-designed to promote or reinforce local distinctiveness.
• We think it is important to introduce measures such as financial penalties to ensure that once a site has been given planning permission, building goes ahead. We go as far as to suggest that if a developer does not develop a site with planning permission, that permission should be revoked. This would be a powerful disincentive to ‘land banking’.
• We are very concerned by the suggestion that national policy should be amended so that neighbourhood plans can allocate appropriate small-scale sites in the Green Belt specifically for starter homes. This is a significant relaxation of the current policy protection for Green Belt. It is unjustified, making a trivial contribution to the quantum of housing development needed and yet degrading the very exceptional tests that protect the Green Belt, the most popular of all planning policies.

You can read the consultation paper itself by following that link to the Government website.

The Forum made a submission to a planning proposal to revise the masterplan for the site. The main changes proposed are:

1. removing the 16 half-acre plots in the centre of the site
2. building more housing of the same type that is going up at the southern end instead
3. reducing the quantity of housing in the northern part of the site so that there is no actual increase in housing overall
4. realigning access routes and redistributing parkland
5. moving the convenience store and associated community to be accessed from South Road close to the Park & Ride.

In our response, we welcomed a number of these changes in outline, and offered details of how they could be further improved. DCNPFMountOswaldSubmission DCNPFMountOswaldPaths

The planning proposal can be seen here

The Forum has submitted responses to the Durham County Council consultation on air quality.

The purpose of the consultation was to seek views on the air quality action plan to improve air quality across Durham City. Forum members contributed to the City of Durham Trust’s detailed response CDT Air quality

The Forum endorsed that document as part of our response, and made a final comment:
“Additionally, we urge that immediate actions need to be taken to deal with the air quality problems in Durham City Centre, i.e. levels of nitrogen dioxide (NO2) exceeding the national air quality standard. This has been a problem since at least 2011 when Durham City was designated an Air Quality Management Areas because of these high levels of NO2. It is not sufficient to say we should not be concerned because many other cities in the UK have similar problems. Air pollution causes deaths. A Public Health England 2014 report noted that, annually, deaths (of people 25+) attributable to air pollution in County Durham are 223 (4.3%). This equates to deaths in Durham City Centre of approx. 9 per year. The Council therefore needs to set timescales for its air quality actions, and look for quick wins, e.g. better maintenance and signposting of cycle and footpaths; extension of opening hours of the Park and Ride sites, e.g. to 12 midnight; requirement for use of low emission vehicles by bus and taxi operators.”

Durham City Centre Neighbourhood Planning Forum is forging ahead with the next stage in preparing a neighbourhood plan for the City Centre. To assist in this task, Ros Ward has recently been appointed as project manager.

“Ros is a well-qualified chartered planner with a wealth of experience and we are extremely fortunate in securing her services” said Roger Cornwell, who chairs the NPF. “As Ros lives in Durham, she is familiar with the issues that arise in our unique city.”

She will guide the team and help gather the evidence necessary to produce a plan that will stack up and pass the independent examination. The next step is to draw up a list of the issues identified by local people and proposals for tackling them. This will go out for consultation and the outcome will feed into the policies that will form the neighbourhood plan.

The Forum has also made a start in contacting developers and others who own property in the City, so that the Plan can take on board their hopes and concerns. Engagement officer Pippa Bell said “The County Council has already sent out a mailing on our behalf, but we would urge anyone else who would like to share their views to get in touch via email “.

With the latest planning application to increase slightly the number of beds at the Renny’s Lane student flats just in, the table of large student residences has been updated. The position now is
Total beds if all outstanding applications and appeals granted: 4304
Total beds if all outstanding applications and appeals refused: 3447

The proposals for 364 beds at the County Hospital, which was turned down by the County Planning Committee in April 2015, was appealed and the hearing was held on December 8^th 2015. The outcome should be known by early February.