The council produced a Core Strategy Discussion Document in October 2005 which was sent out for consultation. The consultation responses were considered and taken into account when producing the Core Strategy Issues and Alternate Options Document.
The Issues and Alternate Options Document was sent out for consultation and the responses from the consultation were taken into account when producing the next stage of the document which was the Core Strategy Preferred Options. This document went out for consultation and having taken into consideration the responses and advice received the council decided to repeat the Preferred Options stage of this document.
The Core Strategy Preferred Options 2 document went out for consultation December 2007 and January 2008. The council received over 100 responses during the Preferred Options 2 consultation and these responses are currently being considered along with national and regional planning guidance with the aim of producing a Core Strategy Submission Draft Document by the end of June 2008.
During this process the council has built up an evidence base to support this document. If you would like to access any of the evidence base used for this process then please select the Core Strategy Evidence base link on the left of this page to take you to the list of relevent documents.
The LDF Core Strategy has now been developed to Submission Draft stage. The document was previously due to be forwarded to the Planning Inspectorate in June 2008, with a Public Inquiry scheduled to commence in December 2008. Assuming that the document was found to be sound, the adopted Core Strategy would have been ratified by the Inspectorate in June 2009. This is after the onset of the new Unitary authority for Northumberland in April 2009.
Following consideration of programming and other issues, members of the Executive Board of CMBC resolved at their meetings held on the 3rd April and 5th June 2008, to “set aside” the LDF Core Strategy Submission Draft and not progress it further through the statutory planning process. This is because of the imminent Local Government Reorganisation situation. The Submission Draft was finally approved and “set aside” by Full Council on the 26th June 2008.
Government Office for the North East (GONE) and the Planning Inspectorate (PINS) were advised of this by letter dated the 8th April 2008 and of formal alteration to the current Local Development Scheme document for Castle Morpeth. Both have raised no objection.
The Core Strategy Submission Draft is the conclusion of an up to date overarching Core Strategy for the borough of Castle Morpeth, which will, to a certain extent, strengthen the policy background in the planning decision making process. Also provided, is a sound framework upon which to base other Local Development Documents, which may be carried forward from this councils’ current Local Development Scheme (LDS) to that of the new Unitary authority. In this respect, the new Unitary authority has now been charged with commencing work on a Local Development Scheme for Northumberland from May 2008, and the six district planning policy areas will therefore be absorbed into the wider strategy.
If you would like to request a hard copy of any of the above documents or would like further information regarding the above process then please contact
Firstcall
Castle Morpeth Borough Council
28 Bridge Street
Morpeth
Northumberland
NE61 1NL
on 01670 535000
or email the Strategic Planning Team at LDF@castlemorpeth.gov.uk