To receive petitions, comments and questions from the public.
Decision:
Immediately before the respective Item, a presentation was received from Mr Paul Mumford, Ms Kitty Eyre and Mr Colin Haigh in support of Item 6, Growing Baldock Strategic Masterplan, as the developer team.
Minutes:
Audio recording – 10 minutes 25 seconds
The Chair invited Mr Paul Mumford, Ms Kitty Eyre and Mr Colin Haigh to speak on Agenda Item 6 – Growing Baldock Strategic Masterplan. Mr Mumford thanked the Chair for the opportunity and provided Council with a verbal presentation, including that:
· They represented the development company, Urban and Civic, and the County Council, as landowner.
· During the consultation, Urban and Civic had spoken to around 1200 individuals in and around Baldock, with lots of the proposals in the masterplan having been informed by these discussions.
· The consultation had been ongoing for 2 years and had involved two main consultation events in March and November 2023, which had been supplemented with further work with residents in surrounding villages, such as Bygrave, Ashwell and Radwell, and the immediate neighbours to the allocated sites.
· Further consultation had taken place with residents on Icknield Way East and Football Close, as there were major proposed changes to how people will move around on these roads.
· The ‘Growing Baldock’ message had gained traction throughout the consultation, to highlight that it was not just about the additional development but growing the whole town of Baldock.
· The new development would be nearly double the current size of the town, with 3300 homes allowed and currently 4500 homes in Baldock.
· This masterplan helped to meet policy SP9 of the adopted Local Plan, which set the framework of the plans which would be supplemented by outline planning applications. The work had been evidence based, visioned through the masterplan and provided frameworks for certain topics.
· Not everything in the masterplan was final and it was designed to be flexible. These areas included the provision of secondary education, which had a preferred approach outlined, but also provided alternative options, which would be considered at the planning permission stage. The other area was transport intervention, with around 30 to 40 interventions required the masterplan needed to allow a strong mechanism for deciding these at planning stage.
· They had continued to work collaboratively with Council Officers and Councillors to develop this plan.
· The next stage would be to submit a planning application for presentation in autumn 2025.
The following Members asked questions:
· Councillor Ian Albert
· Councillor Tom Tyson
· Councillor Jon Clayden
In response to questions, Mr Haigh advised that:
· The aspiration of the County Council was to provide new, modern waste facilities and there were examples of these around the County. This was the plan for the reserved land, however, this would be discussed with the new County administration as to how it would be realised.
· If the County Council ceased to exist, following Local Government Reorganisation, it was anticipated that the assets of the County Council would transfer to the new relevant authority. Therefore, whichever authority North Herts Council became a part of would inherit and become the main authority for this site.
· It was normal as part of planning applications for the service provider to seek a contribution towards SEND provision, which could be either an on site provision or a contribution to provision off site. That would happen in this instance and the County Council would be seeking a provision towards SEND. If primary and secondary education sites were provided on site, then the preference would be for an on-site SEND provision.