Placemaking plan and metro Mayor

Bath & North East Somerset Council has submitted its placemaking plan for examination by a government inspector.

The placemaking plan is the addition to the councils core strategy and when adopted finalises it into a full local plan that gives clear guidance to developers and housing numbers that the council agrees are needed for the next 15 years.

The link to the plan can be found here http://www.bathnes.gov.uk/placemakingplan

The plan should be robust and be of comfort to many local residents, however the council has a duty to co-operate  with other local councils and this means the development of a spacial strategy with the other four former councils that used to be Avon means additional housing may be needed to meet Bristol's failure to deliver.

The above is another reason that we do not need a Metro Mayor imposed on our area that could dictate where housing that this area does not need would be built just to meet Bristol'sneeds.

The creation of dormitory towns is not an acceptable solution to meet Bristol's failures. Four years of an elected Mayor in Bristol have seen woeful delivery of affordable housing in that area, whereas Bath & North East Somerset under the Liberal Democrats until 2015 saw 4 years of record breaking delivery.

Planning Committee to be pod cast

The development control committee on Bath and North East Somerset Council is to be pod cast in a trial last for 3 months thanks to Liberal Democrat Councillor Paul Crossley who persuaded the committee to a agree the trail period.

I hope that this will become permanent as public interest in planning matters is high and it would be good to see democracy in action as far as planning matters are concerned.

The Liberal Democrat administration between 2011 & 2015 introduced the Pod casting of both cabinet meetings and Full Council so adding planning committee is a natural development.