WMRSS Phase 2 Revision EIP CLOSING SUBMISSION

My written closing submission is provided below :

This submission comprises 2 parts :
1. Summary of Key Points made to the Examination
2. A New Mercian Hymn (for WMRSS) based on A Re-Construction of the opening to Geoffrey Hill’s Mercian Hymns*

1. Summary of Key Points made to the Examination

My original response to the WMRSS Phase 2 Spatial Options Consultation (2007) identified the need to align the development of options with Strategic Environmental Assessment (SEA), and expressed scepticism about the potential scale of housing-based growth, even prior to the subsequent economic downturn.

In the event, the issues of SEA compliance, in relation to the development of spatial options in both the West Midlands Regional Assembly’s Preferred Option and subsequent work for the Government Office by Nathaniel Litchfield and Partners, have been highlighted during the Examination Process.

2. A New Mercian Hymn (for the Regional Spatial Strategy)

King of the West Midlands Heritage, Local Distinctiveness :
Overlord for Sustainable Transport : Architect of
Renaissance in the Major Urban Areas and Telford,
Regeneration in the North Staffordshire Conurbation :
Master of the Strategic Flood Risk Assessment :
Protector of Natural Habitats : Contractor to Location
Appropriate Place-Making in the Shire Counties :
Financier : Manufacturer : Commissioner for Rural
Communities : Friend of the Social Landlord, the Old
And New Economies.

“I like that” said Offa, “SEA EU again”.**

* In the original poem a metaphorical King Offa is part-humorously invoked as the Genius Loci of Mercia/the West Midlands Region
** My poem is also an invocation to Offa, this time re-constructed as Contractor for Eco-Logical Infrastructure and Low-Carbon Development, and, indeed as “Sewer King” – re-calling the Fisher King of Ancient British and Anglo-Celtic Arthurian Myth – to allay the Welsh Assembly’s and others’ concerns about “Water Issues”.

24 June 2009

Further posts (3 & 16 June)  on King Offa & Mercian Hymns can be found @ http://witchofworcester.wordpress.com

West Midlands Regional Spatial Strategy Proposed Phase 2 Revision – SEA (Strategic Environmental Assessment) Compliance Issues

The following note should be read in the context of  the series of letters posted on 22 June  in respect of the SEA Directive @ www.planning-inspectorate.gov.uk/pins/rss/west_midlands_phase_two/ 

WMRSS Proposed Phase 2 Revision Strategic Environmental Assessment Directive (SEA)  Compliance Issues  – Note following Matter 1 Hearing

The SEA Directive requires : “An outline of the reasons for selecting the alternatives dealt with, and a description of how the assessment was undertaken including any difficulties (such as technical deficiencies or lack of know how) encountered in compiling the required information” (Par 4.9 Sustainability Appraisal/Non-Technical Summary of Nathaniel Lichfield and Partners (NLP) Report for GO-WM: Development Options for the West Midlands RSS in Reponse to the NHPAU Report October 2008/CD 182)

In the previous paragraph (4.8) entitled “Difficulties” the NLP SA acknowledges the following issues : “….uncertainties in the 2007 SA (for the West Midlands Regional Assembly Preferred Option), limited consultation which may have generated further information, and that spatially specific effects cannot always be identified”.

 In turn, the report by URSUS Consultants for WMRA entitled “Review of the Sustainability Appraisal of the NLP Housing Study Relating to the West Midlands RSS Phase 2 Revision” (CD236) notes a number of difficulties with the NLP study, and observes that : “The (NLP SA) report does not describe the reasons for choosing the options or scenarios…”

This difficulty, I would argue, is also central to the URSUS SA. Moreover, a crucial weakness of the URSUS SA, I suggest, is a lack of evidence that “spatially specific effects” have been have been properly integrated into the process for selecting the “Preferred Option”, which emerges from WMRA’s 3 housing “scenarios”.

On the issue of the “limited consultation” to which the NLP Report “Options” have been subject, this clearly raised difficulties about how far these can be tested through the present Examination, and, therefore, whether a further “Review” process will be required, as I submitted in the context of wider procedural compliance issues.

Of relevance to the above comments is the recent judgement on the East of England Plan SEA, where legal advice indicated that there were legitimate grounds to lodge a challenge, principally on the failure of the strategic environmental assessment to consider reasonable alternatives to the four strategic growth proposals.

The following information is taken from the website of Landmark Chambers (www.landmarkchambers.co.uk) :

“Following a hearing earlier this week [last], Mitting J. has held in response to a challenge by Hertfordshire County Council and St Alban’s District Council under s. 113 of the Planning & Compulsory Purchase Act 2004, that the Secretary of State’s approval of the East of England Plan (RSS for the east of the country) has breached certain requirements for strategic environmental assessment in regulation 12 of the Environmental Assessment of Plans and Programmes Regulations 2004 .

The challenge concerned the decision to require significant additional housing to be met in Hemel Hempstead, Welwyn Garden City, Hatfield and Harlow by means of significant releases of land from the Green Belt without a lawful strategic environmental assessment which considered the reasonable alternatives to the proposals, given the changes made to the policies at the Proposed Changes stage. The Judge rejected the claim so far as it related to Harlow, but upheld the claim relating to the other settlements (and the implications for St Albans). “

WMRSS Proposed Phase 2 Revision/SEA Compliance Issues Respondent 586/Janet Mackinnon/26 May 2007

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