As the Roseland Plan was adopted before the Cornwall Local Plan, the Council have to check its conformity with that Plan and also with recently-issued Planning Guidance from Government. This has been done and Cornwall Council has issued the following statement.

“Following the Adoption of the Cornwall Local Plan on the 22nd November 2016 Cornwall Council has checked each Neighbourhood Development Plan Adopted prior to that Plan to ensure that the policies of the Neighbourhood Plan are in general conformity with the new Local Plan.

At the time the Roseland Plan was examined, all policies were considered by the Examiner to have appropriate regard to the National Planning Policy Framework (i.e. none of them directly conflicted with the NPPF). However, since that time national planning guidance relating to affordable housing thresholds has changed.

As a result of checking, the Council is content that all policies other than HO3 (Re-use of Redundant Buildings) and HO4 (New Affordable Housing) will be in general conformity with the Cornwall Local Plan. The parts of policies HO3 and 4 that refer to affordable housing thresholds no longer comply with the affordable housing thresholds set out in the Local Plan, which were themselves changed at the Local Plan Examination to fit with new Government thresholds.

Cornwall Council will continue to use all policies of the Neighbourhood Plan to determine planning applications on the Roseland, but will no longer apply the lower affordable housing thresholds currently stated in Policies HO3 and HO4. Exception sites will continue to be assessed using the criteria set out in Policy 9 of the Local plan, which, subject to viability, requires a starting point of 100{c8c3b3d140ed11cb7662417ff7b2dc686ffa9c2daf0848ac14f76e68f36d0c20} affordable housing for sites outside settlement boundaries.

A Statement of Conformity for the Roseland Plan, which will confirm this view, will be published on the Council’s website in due course.”

The next meeting of the Steering Group will be held at 7 pm on Wednesday 19th April at Gerrans Memorial Hall. Members of the public are welcome to attend.

To download a copy of the Plan, go to: http://www.roselandplan.org/the-roseland-plan.html.

Info/contact details: http://www.roselandplan.org; info@roselandplan.org; 01872 501749.