Sustainability Appraisal, Main Mods 2017

Background

1.1 Warwick District Council (WDC) has been undertaking Sustainability Appraisal (SA) incorporating Strategic Environmental Assessment (SEA) since 2011 to inform the preparation of the Warwick Local Plan.  The SA and Local Plan progress to date may be summarised as follows:

Table 1.1: Local Plan and SA/sea published documents to date

LDP Stage and Documents Consultation	SA/SEA Stage and Documents Consultation
Issues and Scenarios Public consultation17 March to 15 July 2011	SA Scoping Report Public consultation17 March to 15 July 2011
Preferred Options Public consultation 01 June to 03 August 2012	Initial SA Report Public consultation 01 June to 03 August 2012
Revised Development Strategy Public consultation 14 June to 29 July 2013	Interim SA Report Public consultation 14 June to 29 July 2013
Village Housing Options and Settlement Boundaries Public Consultation 22 November 2013 to 20 January 2014	SA of Potential Village Site Allocations Public Consultation 22 November 2013 to 20 January 2014
Publication Draft Local Plan Public Consultation w/c 12 May to w/c 23 June 2014	Publication Draft SA Report Public Consultation w/c 12 May to w/c 23 June 2014
Submission Local Plan Submitted in Jan 2015 to be examined by an independent inspector	Submission SA Report  Submitted alongside the Local Plan in Jan 2015 to be examined by an independent inspector
Proposed Modifications Public consultation from 11 March to 22 April 2016	SA Addendum Report (Feb 2016) Public consultation from 11 March to 22 April 2016
Proposed Modifications Submitted to Inspector June 2016	SA Addendum Report (June 2016) incorporating responses to representations made during consultation Submitted to Inspector June 2016
Main Modifications (February 2017) Public consultation commencing March 2017	Further SA Addendum Report (February 2017) Public consultation commencing March 2017
Adoption of Local Plan Provisionally scheduled for Summer 2017	SA/SEA Adoption Statement Provisionally scheduled for Summer 2017

Submission of the Local Plan (2015), Examination (2015)

1.2 The Local Plan and all associated documents, including the SA Report, were submitted to the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government on 30 January 2015 for independent examination.  Initial hearing sessions were held from 6 to 12 May 2015 to consider the duty to co-operate (Matter 1), housing provision Matter 2) and the supply and delivery of housing land (Matter 3).

1.3 The Inspector's initial findings on Matters 1, 2 & 3 were received by WDC on 01 June 2015^[1].  The Council requested that the Inspector suspend the examination to allow additional work to address the issues identified, in particular the unmet housing need arising from Coventry^[2], and this was agreed until May 2016^[3]. The Council undertook a range of further work including on site options in order to accommodate the potential uplift in housing requirement and this informed the development of Proposed Modifications to the Local Plan.

1.4 In October 2015, the Council commissioned Enfusion Ltd to provide specialist, independent services to undertake any further SA work required during the suspension of the Examination.  The method and findings of the further SA work were presented in the SA Addendum Report^[4] (February 2016) that accompanied the Proposed Modifications^[5] on public consultation from 11 March to 22 April 2016. 

Resumed Examination (2016)

1.5 Representations on the Proposed Modifications received from the public consultation were taken into account by the Council and the Inspector. Representations on the SA Addendum Report (February 2016) [SA11PM] were taken into account with responses provided in Appendix V of the finalised SA Addendum Report (June 2016) and submitted to the Inspector. The Examination of the Submitted Local Plan with Proposed Modifications was resumed^[6] from 27 September to 15 December 2016. 

Proposed Main Modifications (2017)

1.6 The Inspector confirmed in his letter of 16 December 2016 [EXAM155] that he considered that the submitted Local Plan (publication draft incorporating focussed changes) can be made sound by modifications. A Sustainability Appraisal should be undertaken of the Main Modifications and a full public consultation. The Inspector will take account of the SA and comments received from consultation in producing his final report to the Council.

Purpose and Structure of this Further SA Addendum Report

1.7 The purpose of this Further SA Addendum Report is to clearly set out the method and findings of further SA work carried out as a result of issues raised and discussed at the resumed Hearings (September – December 2016).  The Main Modifications document prepared by the Council for consultation in March 2017 includes modifications that were previously subject to SA and reported in February 2016 and with responses to comments received in June 2016. Therefore, this SA Report builds upon the earlier SA work and only considers the additional modifications to the Local Plan that were arising through the Hearings in late 2016. As this SA only considers the changes to the Submitted Plan (ie Publication plus the Focused Changes), any changes that had been made after the plan was submitted but that are no longer incorporated (such as sites at Barford, Hatton Park, Radford Semele, North of Milverton, and Cubbington) are not specifically addressed in this SA.

1.9 This Further SA Addendum Report has been prepared in accordance with the requirements of the SEA Regulations^[7] and the NPPF^[8] and thus constitutes part of the Sustainability Report for compliance purposes. Following this introductory Section 1, this report is structured into further sections as follow:

• Section 2 explains the approach taken and details the methods used for further SA work
• Section 3 provides a summary of the findings of the further SA
• Section 4 sets out the overall summary findings and next steps for the Local Plan and the SA
• Technical Appendices: Appendix I provides details of the screening of Main Modifications for significance with regard to the SA & likely significant effects and Appendix II details new & refreshed SA of Site Allocation Options 

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