Core Strategy and Policies Development Plan Document (DPD) Main Modifications

Introduction

1. The Ipswich Borough Council Local Plan Review (the Plan) was submitted to the Secretary of State for independent examination on 10 June 2020. Planning Inspectors Karen Baker DipTP MA DipMP MRTPI and Mike Hayden BSc(Hons) DipTP MRTPI were appointed to undertake the Examination with a Public Hearing held between 24 November and 16 December 2020.

2. Following the close of the Examination Hearing, the Inspectors wrote to the Council on 10 March 2021 setting out their views on the next steps for the examination of the Plan. This includes consultation on the Main Modifications (MMs) identified by the Council and discussed during the hearing that are required to make the Plan legally compliant or sound.

3. The Council has prepared this schedule setting out the proposed MMs, which are now published for public consultation, along with an updated Sustainability Appraisal (SA) and Habitat Regulations Assessment (HRA). The MMs are expressed in the conventional form of strikethrough for deletions and underlining for additions of text.

4. The Council has also prepared a draft Plan including the proposed MMs, and published this alongside the MMs for illustrative purposes only. If there are any differences or discrepancies between the draft Plan with MMs and this MMs schedule, it is the latter that takes precedence.

5. This consultation is not an opportunity to re-state previous representations, to raise new objections to matters not covered by the MMs, or to seek further changes to the Publication draft of the Plan. We are seeking your views on whether the MMs are legally compliant and/or sound. Guidance on what constitutes legal compliance and soundness is available here.

6. All duly made representations will be recorded, made available to view on the Examination pages of the Council's website, and sent to the Inspectors for their consideration via the Programme Officer. The Inspectors anticipate that all issues arising from this consultation on the MMs will be considered through the written representations procedure. Exceptionally, however, the Inspectors may decide it is necessary to hold additional Hearing sessions in order to resolve or clarify any outstanding issues.

7. For clarity, MMs are proposed changes that would materially affect the policies in the Local Plan Review. This does not include 'Additional Modifications', sometimes referred to as 'minor modifications', which are concerned with grammatical, formatting and other non-material changes.

8. The Council has published separate schedules of Additional Modifications (AMs) to the Plan, and of proposed changes to the Policies Map, some of which are consequent on the MMs. To be clear, the AMs and changes to the Policies Map are outside the scope of the Examination and, therefore, do not form part of this consultation.