Decision Maker: Officer Delegated Decision
Decision status: Recommendations Approved
Is Key decision?: No
Is subject to call in?: No
That the Corfe
Mullen Parish area be designated a neighbourhood area.
Scheme of
delegation
Under the Officer
Scheme of Delegation (April 2019), the Executive Director of Place has the
power to ‘make a final determination as to whether to designate a neighbourhood
plan area and/or make such an area a business area’.
The Local Scheme of
Nomination sets out which functions have been nominated by the Executive
Director of Place and any conditions or limitations. This includes the power
‘to designate neighbourhood plan areas (where the Council must exercise its
powers to designate the specified area applied for as a neighbourhood plan
area) and neighbourhood forums’. The only condition/limitation is that the
‘Ward members and the relevant Portfolio Holder being informed’.
Neighbourhood
Area designation
Dorset Council has
received a neighbourhood area application from Corfe Mullen Town Council.
The Neighbourhood
Planning (General) Regulations 2012 (as amended) state under regulation 5A
that:
(1)
…where─
(a) a
local planning authority receives an area application from a parish council;
(b)
the area specified in the application consists of the whole of the
parish council’s area; and
(c)
if any part of the specified area is part of a neighbourhood area, none
of that neighbourhood area extends outside the parish council’s area.
(2)
The local
planning authority must exercise their powers under section 61G of the 1990 Act
to designate the specified area as a neighbourhood area.
At the same time
regulation 5A paragraph (3) outlines that under the circumstances set out in
paragraph (1), above, there is no requirement for a local planning authority to
consult on the proposed neighbourhood area.
These provisions
are summarised in Paragraph 032 (Reference ID: 41-032-20170728) of the
neighbourhood planning section of the national Planning Practice Guidance
(PPG). This states:
‘Where a parish
council applies for the whole of the area of the parish to be designated as a
neighbourhood area, the local planning authority must designate the whole of
the area applied for. This includes where a parish applies to extend its
existing neighbourhood area to its parish boundary. Exceptions to this are
where the area applied for:
· has already been designated as a
neighbourhood area which extends beyond the parish boundary; or
· forms part of another application
that has not yet been determined.
Corfe Mullen Town
Council have applied to have the whole of its parish area designated as a
neighbourhood area. The area specified in the application does not extend
beyond Corfe Mullen parish boundaries and does not overlap with other
neighbourhood areas already designated or applied for and awaiting
determination.
Regulation 5A of
the Neighbourhood Planning (General) Regulations 2012 (as amended) therefore
applies to the application received from Corfe Mullen Town Council. To this end
there is no requirement to consult on the application and Dorset Council must
exercise its powers under section 61G of the Town and Country Planning Act 1990
to designate the Corfe Mullen Parish area as a neighbourhood area.
Business Area
Section 61H of the
Town and Country Planning Act 1990, as amended by the Localism Act 2011,
requires that when designating a neighbourhood area, a local planning authority
should consider whether the area concerned should be designated as a ‘business
area’. If a business area is designated, local businesses would have the
opportunity to be more involved in the formation of the neighbourhood plan and
would get an opportunity to vote (alongside registered electors) in the later
referendum on whether the neighbourhood plan should come into force. However,
this section of the Act also makes it clear that a neighbourhood area should
only be designated as a business area if it is ‘wholly or predominantly
business in nature’.
Since the built-up
areas of the Corfe Mullen parish area are predominantly residential in nature,
it is not considered appropriate to designate the proposed neighbourhood area as
a business area.
N/A
Publication date: 04/03/2021
Date of decision: 03/03/2021