Issue - meetings

The report referred to the Health Impact Assessment (HIA) Supplementary Planning Document (SPD) that provided guidance on the implementation of policies within the South Cambridgeshire Local Plan (2018) and the Cambridge Local Plan (2018) with regards to the assessment and consideration of health impacts for some types of new development in Greater Cambridge.

 

The planning and design of the built environment had a major influence on human health and wellbeing and a HIA provides a structured way of assessing the prospective health impacts of a development on all parts of the community and ensuring that any potential negative impacts are avoided or minimised and that positive impacts are maximised.

 

Decision of the Executive Councillor for Planning, Building Control and Infrastructure

      i.         Considered the main issues raised in the public consultation, agreed responses to the representations received, and agreed proposed changes to the Health Impact Assessment Supplementary Planning Document as set out in the Statement of Consultation (Appendix A of the Officer’s report).

    ii.         Subject to (i), adopt the amended Health Impact Assessment Supplementary Planning Document (Appendix B of the Officer’s report).

   iii.         Agreed to delegate to the Joint Director of Planning in consultation with the Executive Councillor for Planning, Building Control and Infrastructure and Chair and Spokes the authority to make any subsequent material amendments and editing changes to the SPD prior to publication.

 

Reason for the Decision

As set out in the Officer’s report.

 

Any Alternative Options Considered and Rejected

Not applicable.

 

Scrutiny Considerations

The Committee received a report from the Policy Planner.

 

In response to comments from Members the Policy Planner and the Joint Director for Planning and Planning Policy Manager said the following:

      i.         Officers had used and adapted (with permission) the Healthy Urban Development Unit checklist (HUDU) which was a document to create healthy sustainable communities and ensured that new developments were planned with health in mind. 

    ii.         There were HIA SPD’s which had been rolled out with Local Authorities in London, Birmingham, Brighton and Hove, these were becoming more prevalent in practice, particularly after Public Health England had published their national guidance in 2020.  

   iii.         It had been important to make sure that the SPD had been relevant and in context to the local area.

  iv.         Officers did not believe that it was appropriate for the SPD to address issues such as banning smoking in public places.It would be very difficult to ban smoking through an SPD as there were other legislative provisions outside the Planning Acts with primary responsibility for addressing this issue.

    v.         Matters of air quality were picked up through the Environmental Health Team, such as, when looking at contaminated land and the compatibility of neighbouring land uses when considering the environmental impacts of new developments.

  vi.         It was essential for all developers to consider and note the significance and importance of health in their developments. The SPD highlighted the importance of mental health in the design process and expectation was that developers would take this into consideration for new developments.

 vii.         The SPD underlined how people in the local area and existing local communities could benefit from a new development, through a sense of community, community facilities, green spaces and the quality of environment.

viii.         There had been a push for increased references to delivering healthy spaces in planning which had broadly derived post pandemic.

  ix.         Limits and thresholds referenced in the SPD had been based on policy thresholds. The existing adopted Local Plans outline different  thresholds for a HIA between the City and South Cambridgeshire District Council. With the emerging Local Plan, the limits and thresholds would be revisited.

    x.         Monitoring would be through the Annual Monitoring Report and conversations were being held on the monitoring of the effectiveness of policies. 

 

The Committee voted unanimously to endorse the Officer recommendations.

 

The Executive Councillor for Planning, Building Control and Transport approved the recommendations.

 

The Executive Councillor again thanked the Officers for all their work on this document.

 

Conflicts of Interest Declared by the Executive Councillor (and any Dispensations Granted).

None