Development Plans

Post date: Mar 04, 2014 5:32:3 PM

At the January meeting the Council had a presentation on Development Plans by Bob Wilson, a senior Milton Keynes Council officer responsible for Planning Policy.

Local Plan Policy Chapter 14 Policies C1 and C9 – Location of Community Facilities/Reserves

Public Halls and places of Worship are classified as ‘Non-residential institutions’ and have the planning class D1.

The Council has to work within national planning policy.

Regional plans have been replaced with a ‘duty to consult’ with neighbouring local authorities.

People should be able to access community facilities by public transport.

Main centres in Milton Keynes are CMK, Westcroft, Kingston, Wolverton and Bletchley.

Milton Keynes Core Strategy

Appendix B lists all the polices from the 2005 Local Plan and explains were there will be replaced. C1 and C9 are retained and both will be replaced in the new ‘Plan MK’.

2005 Local Plan replaced by 2013 Core Strategy to be replaced by new Plan MK. Although many policies carried forward.

Future Planning Policy, Plan MK

There will be the opportunity for public input during the summer/autumn of 2014 through the ‘Issues and Options paper’. There will be a 12 weeks consultation. The Council of Faiths will be a consultee. 

The Statement of Community Involvement is to be refreshed ahead of the new plan.

The Council will wish to engage with faith groups, ethnic minorities and youth.

Housing – There is a Strategic Housing Market Assessment.

Jobs – There is an Employment Land Study.

Regarding D1 (places of worship) use  the Council of Faiths view was that existing D1 plots aren’t big enough and there are parking issues with them. The faith community has a desire for larger plots as people wish to congregate in larger groups.

The Council of Faiths wants fewer, larger sites which are not in residential areas.

There are already 5 or 6 groups who want to use vacant industrial buildings, with either a 50:50 or 70:30 warehouse to office space split.

These sites would cope with the larger groups, they tend to have parking, and would release the smaller sites in residential areas for other uses such as housing.

A change of policy in this direction would also bring unused industrial buildings back into use.