Can I remind members that Lichfield District Council has requested His Majesty's Planning Inspectorate to suspend the Public Examination of the Local Plan for up to 12 months and that the Inspectors have agreed to their request?

This has arisen partly because of the loss of the specialist staff who prepared the proposed Plan. The Society has written to the Council to request that, once the additional work required (set out in a letter from the Inspectorate) is complete, the Council then undertakes a further consultation equivalent in scope and duration to that carried out at the earlier stage of the Plan's preparation.

The Inspectors' letter highlights substantial gaps in the evidence base presented and requires the Council to demonstrate that the draft Local Plan policies remain justified, given the updated evidence that they require. At one extreme, should the work requested not be completed, the Inspectors could recommend the Plan's withdrawal, requiring the Council to start the whole process again from scratch.

In our letter we suggested that the Council needs to reconsider whether the proposed development pattern in the draft Local Plan (mainly large-scale developments around major settlements) remains justified and continues to be supported by the new evidence that the Council will be required to collect and assess. The Inspectors' letter reminds the Council of "the need to ensure that Examinations ... are based on the most up to date evidence".

The Council has argued that concentrating new development around major settlements is justified by the need to deliver a broad range of public services and to combat environmental harm from car travel. But, is this approach still justified when, since Covid lockdowns, there is more home working which may not require the co-location of employment and housing to achieve economic/employment growth? The Society believes that these fundamental changes in our ways of living and working should be fully considered when weighing policy alternatives.

We stressed in our letter that the Council needs to be more open-minded when considering options. In our view, previous administrations over the last two decades have approached the local planning process with pre-conceived views as to the nature of future development in the district and have chosen to interpret evidence in such a way as to arrive at their preferred conclusion. This has meant that, for example, the alternative option of a new freestanding settlement in the district, promoted consistently by the Civic Society over the last twenty years, has been regularly rejected in favour of further large additional development sites adjacent to Lichfield and Burntwood.

We believe the Council should use the opportunity created by the suspension of the Local Plan Examination to review its policy choices and then allow the public to have their say.

A reply to our letter has been received from Councillor Iain Eadie, and this is now being considered.

Roger Hockney
December, 2022