Understanding the spatial strategy and the Sustainability Appraisal.

Drawing up options for the spatial strategy

The next main stage of Local Plan preparation is to draw up options for the spatial strategy. As we mentioned earlier, this identifies broadly where development should be located to meet local needs. Possible options might include:

• Concentrating development in urban areas on previously used (brownfield) land. This is sometimes called an 'urban capacity' option.
• A number of urban extensions on brownfield or greenfield sites.
• Development around public transport nodes (e.g. railway stations).
• Distributing development across the district/county, with most development in towns, but allowing for some development in larger villages too.
• Completely new settlements perhaps on previously developed land, such as former defence, prisons or health care sites which are no longer in use.
• A combination of these options may be proposed.

Commenting on options

This is a key stage to make comments and have an influence on the plan - once the spatial strategy has been decided the remainder of the process is about the detail. If you have limited time and resources, make sure you comment at this stage. See the our example letter here.

The role of the Sustainability Appraisal

Local Plans are required to be subject to a process known as Sustainability Appraisal. This considers the likely social, environmental and economic implications of the plan, and whether these are likely to have positive, negative, neutral or uncertain effects on sustainability objectives. The sustainability objectives are informed by locally important issues which are normally identified in the Sustainable Community Strategy. Sustainability objectives might include:

• To provide everyone with an affordable home.
• To maximise access to job opportunities.
• To reduce greenhouse gas emissions by minimising the need to travel.
• To improve health and well-being in areas suffering from deprivation.
• To protect nature reserves.
• To ensure developments are adapted to cope with the effects of climate change.

The flow chart below shows how the Sustainability Appraisal feeds into the Local Plan process - it provides a way of testing and challenging the plan, and of comparing options for where development should be located, or alternative policy responses to issues or problems.

A key requirement of the Sustainability Appraisal is to consider options or alternatives at each stage in the preparation of the Local Plan - and to explain clearly why the chosen option has been selected, and others rejected.

Step 4: Understanding policies and proposals

Further reading

Sample letter or email supporting a spatial strategy
Sustainable Communities Strategies
Further information on Sustainability Appraisal