Decision details

Reason for the Decision

·         The  Minerals Strategy 2014, with Policies Map, was adopted by Bournemouth, Dorset and Poole Councils in 2014. 

·         It has recently been noted for the first time that an error occurred when the Policies Map was being prepared, and land in the vicinity of West Moors that should have been shown as being safeguarded for minerals was not shown in this way.

·         This error has come to light as a result of enforcement action being taken at a site in this area.

·         The error needs to be corrected, in order that documents submitted to the Planning Inspectorate in support of this enforcement action are factually correct, and also to ensure that the Policies Map is accurate in spatially representing the policies of the Plan.

No-one has been disadvantaged by the error, or its correction.  No change is to be made to any of the adopted policies of the  Minerals Strategy 2014.  Case law (see below) has demonstrated that planning authorities are allowed to make factual corrections to address errors in a Policies Map, following adoption of a Plan.

Alternative Options considered and rejected

The only alternative is to do nothing, which could have future implications for misleading land owners, developers or the public, and could lead to parties being disadvantaged. 

It could also have an impact on current enforcement action, and the Council could be criticised for not taking action having discovered this error.

Budget Implications

No implications from making the correction.

Legal Implications

No implications from making the correction.

Reference Documents

The case law referred to earlier is: 

R(on the application of Douglas Bond) v Vale of White Horse District Council [2019] EWHC 3080 (Admin) in which ‘The Court held that whilst a Proposals Map may be a local development document, it is not a development plan document for the purpose of the Planning and Compulsory Purchase Act 2004 and therefore is not subject to the procedures in the Act that require the draft to be submitted for independent examination. 

The role of the Proposals Map is to illustrate the policies in the development plan document with which it is associated.  Where the Proposals Map has been drawn up incorrectly, so that it does not illustrate the adopted policies, a correction of the map is not an alteration of the development plan document since no alteration of the development plan itself is required.

The powers in Sections 23(1), 23(5) and 26(1) of the Act were sufficiently wide to allow a correction to a Proposals Map in such circumstances’.

Decision

To note that a recently  identified factual error in the Policies Map of the  Minerals Strategy 2014 has been corrected.