Agenda and minutes

There were no disclosable pecuniary interests.

a)  To note the minutes of the meeting held on 17 June, 2024

b)  Matters arising

The minutes of the meeting held on 17^th June 2024 were agreed and signed as a true record. There were no matters arising.

Report of the Director of City Services and Commercial

The Cabinet Member for Housing and Communities considered a report of the Director of City Services and Commercial, that had also been considered at the meeting of the Scrutiny Co-ordination Committee on 19^th September 2024, which outlined the consultation currently being undertaken by the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government on proposed reforms to the National Planning Policy Framework and sought approval to submit a proposed response to the consultation.

The Government was consulting on a series of proposed changes to national planning policy that included specific changes to the National Planning Policy Framework (NPPF) and broader reforms relating to planning fees, local plan intervention and the thresholds used for determining applications under the Nationally Significant Infrastructure Project (NSIP) regime. The consultation ran from 30th July – 24th September 2024 with the Government indicating that a new version of the NPPF would be published before the end of 2024.

Paragraph 6 of Part 2 A of the Constitution sets out how the Council will respond to Government Consultation papers. Due to the short timescale and complexity, it had not been possible to submit a report to either Council or Cabinet. Where time did not permit the submission of a report to Council or Cabinet, the Constitution required that responses should be agreed by the Leader, the appropriate Cabinet Member and the appropriate Director, following consultation with the appropriate Shadow Cabinet Member. In this case, the appropriate Cabinet Member had the authority, at their discretion, to refer a consultation to the relevant Scrutiny Board in light of the importance and high profile of the consultation process.

With the agreement of the Cabinet Member for Housing and Communities and the Chair of the Scrutiny Co-ordination Committee, given the importance and high profile of this consultation and in order to ensure transparency and afford cross party consideration of the response,  it had been agreed that Scrutiny Co-ordination Committee and the Cabinet Member for Housing and Communities would formally consider the proposed response prior to recommending the response to the Leader of the Council, in accordance with the Constitution. The Shadow Cabinet Member for Housing and Communities was invited to attend both the Scrutiny Co-ordination Committee and the Cabinet Member for Housing and Communities meetings. 

Since December 2022, the City Council had been undertaking a Local Plan Review in order to update the 2017 Local Plan. To this end, a Regulation 18 (Issues and Options) consultation was undertaken between July and September 2023. Led by the Local Plan Advisory Panel, officers were now at an advanced stage of the Local Plan Review process and a Regulation 19 (draft revised Local Plan) consultation was scheduled to commence before the end of 2024.

The report gave an overview of the proposed changes to the National Planning Policy Framework highlighting any implications for Coventry. An appendix to the report provided the National Planning Policy Framework: Draft Text for Consultation and a further appendix provided a Draft Response to Consultation.

The Cabinet Member received a briefing  ...  view the full minutes text for item 9.

There are no outstanding issues

There were no outstanding issues.

There were no other items of public business.