Agenda item

Ian Bakewell presented the report and answered the members’ questions with Mark Hand.

Challenge:

How important is it that we meet every one of the criteria set out by Welsh Government? How does determining a site work in relation to, for example, available school places?

I don’t think the process would consider school quotas, but access to schools is a criterion. At this stage we haven’t considered where schools are at capacity, but it would make sense for the matter to enter the debate.

Will the government therefore be flexible on the criteria, especially as there’s a cost implication for transport to school?

Access to schools is not set out definitively in the legislation – the obligation is more about the actual provision. We are expected to consider certain criteria, and we would aim to get as close to meeting all of those as possible. It would probably be difficult to meet every criterion definitively.

How would you rank those criteria i.e. schooling being one of the most important aspects?

We’ve not really done so, and it would be hard to do so, but it is certainly a consideration. Again, we won’t ‘tick every box’ with the sites. The criteria aren’t weighed against each other, it will be a carefully balanced decision as we progress. As we are considering families who are already in the county, their children should already be in the schooling system, though that isn’t to say that successful sites will necessarily be in those areas – so there could be the implication of a different catchment. Home-to-school transport policies would then apply, as for any other residents.

Appendix 2 mentions guidance; there’s a lot concerning public sites, but not much for private sites. There isn’t a section on licensing either.

Welsh Government have produced the public site criteria, which they would expect us to meet, if we go down that road. We expect that we will need to, but the need can be met by private arrangement. Including licensing as part of the working group’s conversation is appropriate – it hasn’t factored into the discussions previously.

Will Appendix 2 be submitted to Welsh Government?

We wouldn’t be compelled to submit it per se, but it would be appropriate to be available as background information to explain how we came to our decision.

The revised criteria mention phosphates and drainage but, quite often, these sites are in rural locations, so this presumably wouldn’t be relevant?

Yes, sites often aren’t on mains drainage, but have private treatment plants. The phosphates requirement on planning decisions is that for anything in sensitive areas (i.e. the northern two-thirds of the county, due to the Usk and Wye rivers), we have to go through a screening process with the habitat regulations, looking at betterment or neutrality in phosphates. It could be that a private treatment plant addresses that, and there is no phosphate impact – that is the position we will need to get to for a site to progress. There isn’t the same phosphates issue with mains drainage in the south of the county.

Chair’s Summary:

The recommendations were agreed by the committee. It would be helpful if licensing were also included in officer group and looking at the criteria. It was suggested that a comment about the importance of schooling be added, in considering the criteria. The workshop will be led by the Select committee, but open to all members.