Planning Policy

The Local Plan (formerly called the Core Strategy) was Submitted to the Secretary of State on the 26th June 2012.

A Hearing (formerly called an Examination in Public) took place, beginning on the Tuesday 29th January 2013 and concluded on Friday 8th February 2013. The Hearings considered a range of issues with the aim of assessing whether the Plan could be adopted by the Council.

Kevin Ward BA (Hons) MRTPI is the Inspector appointed by the Secretary of State under Section 20 of the Planning and Compulsory Purchase Act 2004 who is carrying out the independent Examination of the Hartlepool Local Plan. Following the Hearing sessions Mr Ward has now confirmed that there is a need for a suspension to the Examination as the proposed site for Gypsy and Traveller provision was not seen as suitable or deliverable.

In a letter to the Council to set out his findings from the Hearing sessions Mr Ward noted that in most instances he was comfortable that he could suggest amendments in order to make the plan sound, however, in the case of the proposed Gypsy and Traveller site, he was unable to make a change in order to make the plan sound as he felt there was no realistic alternatives put forward by the Council. 

As a result of this situation, the Council has been given a period of no more than six months to carry out further work on this issue and to identify a suitable site for Gypsy and Travellers within the first five years and the Plan period as a whole. 

As a result of this the Council will now undertake further work on this issue. A call for sites (see here) took place for a 21 day period from the 18th February 2013. No private sites were put forward. The Council has now undertaken a thorough assessment of all Council sites to assess suitability, availability and achieveability. A shortlist of sites with potential has been drawn up and can be viewed via the following link. An 8 week public consultation is taking place between Thursday 2nd May and Thursday 27th June 2013. The results of the consultation will then be considered prior to a preferred site or sites being taken to Council for agreement. Once agreed the preferred site(s) will be reported back to Mr Ward who will re-open a Hearing session later in the year to consider the information provided. 

The Inspector is also currently giving those involved in the Hearing process a chance to make further representations following the recent revocation of the RSS and the publication of new household formation rates by DCLG. The Inspectors letter can be viewed via this link. The Inspector is giving participants until the 15th June 2013 to make any further representations.

Jim Riddle is the Programme Officer for the Examination, working under the Inspectors direction, independently from the Council.  He is responsible for organising the administration of the Examination, maintaining the document library, ensuring that all documents received are distributed, and acting as the channel of communication between myself, the Council and those taking part in the Examination. He is the first point of contact for participants with queries about the process.

The Programme Officer's contact details are:

Tel 07740 493 307

Email  jimriddle@tiscali.co.uk

The Submission Documents, along with other relevant pieces of evidence base work which have been undertaken to inform the development of the Local Plan can be accessed via the downloads page. For the purposes of the examination of the Local Plan these Core Documents have been numbered for ease of reference and are listed here.  Statements and information from the Hearing sessions can be found here.

Should you have any queries or require any copies of these documents please feel free to contact the Planning Policy Team on 01429 523532.