Agenda item

Report of the Strategic Director of Regeneration and Environment

Recommendations:-

1.    That the Council be a signatory to the Sheffield City Region Statement of Common Ground.

Consideration was given to a report which sought agreement for the Council to become a signatory to the Sheffield City Region Statement of Common Ground. It was reported that local planning authorities have a statutory “duty to cooperate” with other relevant bodies in order to encourage and enable strategic planning. The Council had met this duty in preparing its adopted Local Plan. Rotherham’s Local Plan has already identified the sites required to deliver the housing and employment development required during the plan period. It was noted that the duty also operates at a wider scale and the Sheffield City Region (SCR) local planning authorities had worked together on a Statement of Common Ground for the city region as a whole.

The statement covered housing, employment, transport, digital connectivity and other matters of strategic interest. The statement was considered to be beneficial to the other local planning authorities in the city region as they began to prepare and review their local plans, as it demonstrated they have met the duty to cooperate at a strategic scale. Being a signatory to the statement would also benefit the Council as it completed the partial update to the Local Plan Core Strategy which was noted as being currently underway. When the updated Core Strategy was submitted to government for independent examination, the planning inspector would require evidence that the duty to cooperate had been met. The Sheffield City Region Statement of Common Ground would form a significant part of this evidence.

The endorsement of the Sheffield City Region Statement of Common Ground would not require the Council to identify any additional housing land, nor would it require any review of the Local Plan Sites and Policies Document prior to the timescales required by legislation.

Resolved:-

That the Council be a signatory to the Sheffield City Region Statement of Common Ground.