Agenda item

For the Council to consider the adoption of the Surrey Waste Local Plan.

The Leader of the Council introduced the report. 

The Cabinet Member for Environment and Climate Change provided a summary of the Surrey Waste Local Plan. She noted thatthe Council had a statutory requirement to produce local plans for minerals and waste to ensure there was sufficient capacity and to review and update those plans where necessary every five years. The existing Plan was last adopted in 2008, if the Council did not adopt the updated Plan, she noted that it would be increasingly difficult to defend planning decisions and enforcement action taken on the basis of the policies in the existing Plan, potentially resulting in unwanted speculative waste development and the regularisation of unauthorised waste activity.

She explained that the review of the Surrey Waste Local Plan commenced in 2016 with a consultation on issues and options between September-November 2016, there was a further consultation on the draft plan between November 2017-February 2018, during January-February 2019 there was another consultation on the submission of the plan and a final consultation on the main modifications in January-February 2020. Throughout those four rounds of public consultation, views on the Plan were sought from residents, businesses and other stakeholders. She noted that Members had been kept updated and engaged throughout the process via reports to the Cabinet, the Communities, Environment and Highways Select Committee, the Planning and Regulatory Committee, the member reference group, and an all Member briefing during the consultation on the submission of the plan. District and borough council officers and Members were engaged in the process through a round of workshops in 2018/19 and Statements of Common Ground were signed between Surrey County Council and all eleven district and borough councils in September 2019.

The Plan presented to Council for adoption included modifications and was found sound in May 2020 by an independent planning inspector following an examination in public in September 2019 and it met all the statutory requirements. She explained that the new Plan had fewer allocated sites than the existing Plan with some sites having been removed completely. She noted that there was only one new site which was at Lambs Business Park in South Godstone, that Trumps Farm was now allocated solely for a household waste Dry Mixed Recyclables (DMR) plant, that Weylands Treatment Works had additional protections for residents in respect of Heavy Goods Vehicles (HGV) routing that was absent from the existing Plan. She added that there were a number of existing industrial estates referred to in the Plan as Industrial Land Areas of Search (ILAS), those sites were not allocated in the new Plan but were identified as potential sites for small to medium scale waste uses subject to usual planning permission and that several of those sites already hosted a range of waste uses.

Looking to the future, she noted that the Council was progressing a joint Minerals and Waste Local Plan to address the increasing synergies between the two. She added that many other County Councils had joint plans and the joint plan was expected to go out to consultation in Summer 2021. She stressed that it was important that in the interim the new Plan was adopted to ensure that the waste planning policies used to determine planning applications were up to date.

Members made the following comments:

·         Thanked the Cabinet Member for Environment and Climate Change for her support in addressing her concerns concerning Weylands Treatment Works which had been a difficult site from its conception. She noted that in the existing Plan it was accepted as one of top sites where it could develop considerably and welcomed the revision in the new Plan which included a scheme for routing HGVs routing down new roads. However, she raised an objection to that part of the new Plan as she noted that the diverting of HGVs would not happen in reality and that a site that had no infrastructure would never expand to what would be required  - so she would abstain from approving the recommendation.

·         Noted that he was portfolio holder in 2016 when the Plan first started its process of revision and thanked those officers involved, the Planning department, as well as the contributions from Members to develop the Plan. In time, he noted that it would help the Council’s Climate Change strategy.

·         Commended the new Plan to Council which had undergone extensive consultation and external assessment.

·         Endorsed the concerns made by the Member regarding Weylands Treatment Works as the access route by HGV’s went through his division.

·         Thanked the Cabinet Member for Environment and Climate Change for listening to Members’ concerns and hoped that the joint Minerals and Waste Local Plan would address difficulties such as the Weylands site. 

RESOLVED:

That Council adopted the Surrey Waste Local Plan.

Rachael I Lake abstained from the vote.