Getting on with the Local Plan

With the latest set of results from the last 12 week consultation we now move to the last lap prior to submission of our local plan for inspection and hopefully approval. CBC will go through a further 6 week consultation on the changes which have materialised and we are targeting completing by early in 2013. A total of 46 weeks of consultation will have been conducted with our communities since we began this process, some task! The importance of the project is clear as it will bring protection to all our planning processes into the next decade, it should also give us further protection in respect of Green Belt areas and unregulated development. By establishing housing assessments for the next fifteen years we go a long way to delivering our manifesto promise of Christchurch homes for Christchurch people. I was pleased to see that the Marsh Lane development has been dropped from the plans as I still remember the plaintive call from the 12 year old for me to intervene and protect her wild-life space. In this case common sense has prevailed but it does mean that we have to find somewhere else to put those dwellings. We will have determined however that we have a robust and deliverable plan which is essential in planning terms. So on to the final stage, members have now been briefed and the new consultation document is being prepared as I write. Further information about dates will be blogged later.