Agenda item

Report of the Statutory Deputy Leader and Cabinet Member for Neighbourhoods seeking endorsement of the Beal Valley and Broadbent Moss Masterplan and Spatial Design Code.

The Cabinet received a report of the Executive Director of Place/Deputy Chief Executive that sought consideration of the Beal Valley and Broadbent Moss Masterplan and Spatial Design Code, that had been prepared in accordance with Places for Everyone, criteria 1 of JPA 10 Beal Valley and criteria 1 of JPA 12 Broadbent Moss, in light of the Motion agreed at the Council meeting on 10^th December, (“Ensuring Statutory Scrutiny and Enforceability for Places for Everyone Masterplans”), that necessitated the requirement of the preparation of a Supplementary Planning Document (SPD) incorporating this Masterplan and Spatial Design Code.

Given the agreement of the Motion “Ensuring Statutory Scrutiny and Enforceability for Places for Everyone Masterplans” at the Council meeting on 10^th December 2025, there was a need to reconsider the recommendations made to Cabinet on the proposed Masterplan and Spatial Design Code in the report on the agenda, and revised recommendations have been proposed in a supplementary report that had been published, to the Council’s website, on 15^th December 2025 and which were now considered by members.

Before officers were able to proceed to prepare the SPD for public consultation, there was a need to seek endorsement from Cabinet that the Masterplan and Spatial Design Code, as prepared by the Developer Consortium with input from council officers, was a suitable basis for the SPD.

The endorsement of the Masterplan in this way was necessary to indicate the suitability of the masterplan as the basis for an SPD to not only avoid consulting on an SPD that the council could not support, but also to inform decision-making should a planning application(s) be submitted for development on parts of the allocations before an SPD has been adopted. 

This would not constitute a non-statutory agreement of the Masterplan (as referred to in resolution 2 of the Motion), but there was a need to provide some kind of basis for officers and Planning Committee to consider planning applications against or else applications could come forward that do not fit together within a wider masterplan of the sites, leading to fractured developments that do not fully meet the infrastructure requirements.  In any event, the fact that there was a masterplan that had been submitted by the Developer Consortium meant that the masterplan would have to be a material consideration in any planning application decision.

The Masterplan and Spatial Design Code were be considered at Place, Economic Growth and Environment Scrutiny Board at the appropriate time in the new year, where members on that Scrutiny Board would be encouraged to provide feedback on what has been prepared by the Developer Consortium so that this can be incorporated into a draft SPD for public consultation.

Resolution 4 of the Motion also agreed for a report on timelines for consultation and adoption of the SPD to be brought to the Cabinet in January 2026. A timetable for the preparation, consultation and adoption of the SPD was considered by the Cabinet.

This timetable was going to be affected by the pre-election period, given that the council would not hold public consultations during the pre-election period, and so the consultation could not take place until after the local elections in May 2026 (although the agreement of Cabinet to proceed to consultation could be made in March 2026). 

Given the time required to then have the minimum 4-week public consultation, consider the feedback, make any necessary amendments and then bring the final SPD back to Cabinet for adoption, the SPD could not be adopted until September 2026.

Options/Alternatives considered:

Option 1 (preferred Option) – to approve the recommendations detailed in the revised and updated report (that was published on 25^th December 2025).

Option 2 – to reject the report.

Resolved:

1.    That the Cabinet endorses the Beal Valley and Broadbent Moss Masterplan and Spatial Design Code and, in accordance with the Motion agreed at the Council meeting on 10^th December, authorise officers to prepare a Supplementary Planning Document incorporating this Masterplan and Spatial Design Code.

2.    That the Cabinet notes the timetable for the preparation of the SPD included in this addendum report.

3.    That the Cabinet notes that the report will be considered by the Place, Economic Growth and Environment Scrutiny Board at the appropriate time in the new year, and should therefore be exempt from call-in, under Rule 14 of the Overview and Scrutiny Procedure Rules in the Constitution, and the Executive Director Place (Deputy Chief Executive) in consultation with the Cabinet Member for Neighbourhoods be given delegated authority to respond to any feedback from Scrutiny as the Masterplan is taken forward to become a Supplementary Planning Document.