Members, officers and any members of the public who are viewing the live stream of this meeting, welcome to the meeting of the joint local plan advisory group. My name is Councillor Katie Thornborough and I am the current chair of the advisory group. The local, this local joint local plan advisory group is non-decision making group and comprises members of Cambridge City Council, South Cambridge District Council and Cambridge County Council and its role is to provide a steer at member level for the development of land use plans integrated with transport strategy. We meet in public and our recommendations go back to the local planning authority for decision making. Please may we begin the meeting by establishing which members are present in the meeting. When your name is called, please would you unmute yourself and introduce yourself. As I stated, my name is Councillor Katie Thornborough. Councillor Timbick. Yes, I'm sorry. Councillor Dr Tummi Hawkins. Good evening, Tummi Hawkins. Councillor Neal Shailer. Hello, that's me. Councillor Simon Smith. You're on mute Simon. Hello, President. Hello, Simon. Councillor Dr Aidan Vanderbeer. Good evening. And Councillor Dr Richard Williams. Good evening, Chair. May I start with a few housekeeping announcements. Please make sure that you switch off, switch your microphone off unless you're invited to speak. And when you are invited to speak, please switch your microphone on. When you finish speaking, please turn off your microphone. Please ensure that if possible, you use a headset when speaking. I'm not using a headset because I haven't got one at the moment then. If you wish to speak, please would you indicate in the chat column, please also indicate if you have to leave the meeting via the chat. Otherwise, please do not use the chat column for any other purpose. If there is not a clear consensus on an item and we need to take a vote, we will do so by roll call. Committee members will be asked to respond for, against or abstain when their name is called. We have a number of officers with us this evening. Jonathan Dixon, Planning Policy Member, will be leading the meeting with support from a number of other officers. John, could I kindly ask you to introduce yourself and inform us who you have on hand to assist with the meeting? Thank you, Councillor Thornbrough. I've had a number of officers help with the reports for this meeting and a number of officers have appeared to watch. But I'll go through the ones who are really involved. So I'm John Dixon, the Planning Policy Manager. We also have Caroline Hunt, the Strategy and Economy Manager. And then presenting to you later, we have Kieran Davis, who is a Planning Officer. Claire Spencer, a Senior Planning Officer. Emma Davies, who is our Sustainability Officer. Nancy Kimberley, a Principal Planning Policy Officer. And Stuart Morris, a Principal Planning Policy Officer. And I'd like to thank them all for their hard work on the agenda for putting this together today. Yeah, thank you, Jonathan. The meeting is being administered by Lawrence Damary-Hulman, Democratic Services Officer. Lawrence, please introduce yourself. Thank you, Chair. Good evening, everyone. Thank you for coming. As you've stated, I'm Lawrence Damary-Hulman and I'm the Democratic Services Officer at Southcams for Planning Matters. Thank you very much. The first item is the election of Chair and Vice-Chair. And the first, so I would like to nominate Councillor Dr Tumi Hawkins as Chair. Is there a seconder for this proposal? Thank you, Councillor Neill-Shayla. Are there any other nominations? No. Does anyone disagree with this nomination? And does anybody want to abstain? OK, Councillor Hawkins, you are elected as Chair of the Advisory Group. I'd like to hand over to you now. Oh, thank you, Councillor Thumbraugh. Good evening, everyone. I guess I'm now the Chair for this year going forward. It's now time to elect a Vice-Chair and I would like to nominate Councillor Catey Thumbraugh as Vice-Chair. Do you have a seconder, please? Yes, I will second. Thank you, Simon. Sorry, Councillor Smith. Are there any other nominations? No, OK. And does anyone disagree with this nomination? Or anyone wish to abstain? I take that as a no. In which case, Councillor Thumbraugh, you are duly elected as the Vice-Chair of the Advisory Group. Thank you. The next item on today's agenda is Apologies. Lawrence, are there any Apologies for absence today, please? No, Chair, no Apologies. We have a full house this evening. Thank you. Brilliant. Always good to have a full house for the first one. OK, members present, do you have interest to declare in relation to any item of business on this agenda? No, I see one saying yes. So if any interest subsequently becomes apparent later in the meeting, please raise it at that point. OK, our next item is agenda item number four, which is a proposed schedule of meetings. As you will see from the meeting papers, we have proposed the schedule of meetings of this group. And before we actually sort of make an addition on that, I'd like to ask John to introduce this item, please, because there's a reason for why we're doing this as we are doing it. Thank you, Chair. I'd like to cover off really the scheduled meetings and the first part of the main report as well, where it goes into more information about why we're here. I think before we start, it's worth setting back and just covering the journey we've been on in the last couple of years. We started our local plan journey in 2019 with some significant stakeholder engagement with local groups and organisations about what we should really be trying to achieve through this new plan. And then in 2020, we held the first consultation, which was a major consultation exercise trying a lot of new things that we hadn't done before to seek views on the issues and the themes that should form part of the plan. We held events like the Big Conversation and lots of reach out to our community and captured a huge amount of feedback at that early stage. We then later on in, I think it was the end of 2020, we held some more focused stakeholder engagement, again with lots of local groups and organisations, as we were starting to get the first findings of our evidence base on the amount of development that was likely to be needed and the issues that should guide it. The next stage was our first proposals consultation at the end of 2021. And again, we tried to learn a lot of the consultation lessons that we tried so far to engage our communities on how much development we should be planning for, where that development should take place and the form that development should take. In June and July, we brought back to members at the Two Council scrutiny committees the results of that consultation and took members through a large amount of feedback we would have from various channels from our quick survey to the more detailed online consultation to records we've gathered up at various events and reported that back and had some discussion about the feedback, particularly how we approached the reach of the consultation in particular and some of the key issues highlighting. But I think we also were aware, given how helpful it's been getting this vast amount of feedback from the community, we needed more time perhaps to explore some of the issues being put to us and to look with members about in a bit more detail about what people have told us about the range of policies we've put forward. And the local plan joint advisory group really gives us the forum to do that. We've got membership from both councils and from the county council and it provides a good way to get some feedback this whilst we move towards development of the draft plan. So in the scheduled meetings, you'll see we've got a series of meetings planned between now and March. I believe the earlier dates are confirmed, but I think our DEMS services colleagues are still finalizing some of the latter ones. We've divided up the sessions into a series of themes which will be very familiar though, they're the themes of the plan. The general approach we've taken is to try and cover perhaps two or three themes at each meeting. Hopefully there's some flexibility around the program because we'll see how the program goes, whether you want to shuffle the order or deal with it slightly differently. This first one would be a good experiment about how the meeting goes. The meetings are obviously as you can see on your screen, the LPAC members, the three members from each council and a single one from the county council. We've also made the invite of any of the other councillors who you may allow to speak at your discretion chair at appropriate points during the discussion. These aren't decision-making meetings, but we will report the minutes of the meeting. When we do get to those decision-making points, we've got a meeting coming up in January where we're seeking to bring back to members some decisions around the strategy and then the decision on the draft plan itself is scheduled for the summer next year. So we can report the findings of these meetings to that process. As for the agendas, you'll see we've provided a summary of the representations received on the topics we're dealing with. We've tried to draw together some of the key issues raised. Obviously all the comments we've received are available on the website in full and we've provided some links in the main report how people can view those, but we've really tried to drew group comments together and highlight who have made those comments and they'll really provide the basis of how we go about providing responses to those comments as we get towards those decision-making processes. And for each issue and theme, the team will take you through using a PowerPoint presentation, to highlight some of that feedback, to remind members what we proposed, summarize some of that feedback, but also set out some of the next steps that officers are already working on in terms of how we develop those policies moving forward. And then we hope to give the LPAC members a chance there to discuss some of those issues and feedback and explore the issues. And that will very much help us as we move to write the plan for you over the coming months. So thank you Chair, we look forward to hearing what members have to say. Thank you very much, John. It's quite good to see what's in front of us here and as you can see, members, the meetings are, we've got in line with the key themes of the local plan. We've got homes, wellbeing and social inclusion, biodiversity, great places and jobs and infrastructure. So, I mean, does anyone have any comment to make on what we've proposed here? Because at the end of the day, what we're trying to do is make sure that our input comes in early enough that it then helps with formalizing the policies for the plan rather than trying to do it further down the line. Councillor Thunbro. I think this is really well set out and having, there's a lot of information that's come with this agenda. So, I think having the agendas as early as possible before the meetings would be useful. In my opinion, I think the policies relating to wellbeing and social inclusion are the ones that I think that we will debate the most because I feel that they are the least developed. When I last went through, they seem to be the least developed but very interesting and very, very important. So, I know that the evidence gathering is continuing on that and it will be very interesting at what other people are doing about healthy cities and places. So, it's just that one I think may take, it may benefit from a real focus and a discussion rather than just sort of okaying the policies that are in, it seems to me all the policies in the other areas are really well thought out already although developing a deserving discussion, of course. Thanks. Yeah, thank you for that. Definitely, I think that's one of the objectives of doing things this way now so that we can put forward ideas to help with formulating what we ended up, what we end up presenting. Kanslow Van Der Wire, please. Yes, I agree. Excellent. Overall, I think my thought looking through it was we started off today with a vision and then next time with the strategy and then going through the policies by theme which are good and then I would just wonder whether there'd be an opportunity at the end to sort of come back on the vision and the strategy and the light of all the information that we'll have gone through over the next several months. We're obviously, we're thinking about the strategy and the vision without having seen all that further information. I don't think it needs to necessarily be a big session but it'd be also a nice way of wrapping it up sort of looking through that schedule. And then you only need to respond to that. This is about a thought to just cherry it up. Okay, well, thanks for that. Sounds like a plan. I think we can discuss that and see how we can, like a summarizing what we talked about and put that into the vision, right? I got you. Can I ask, John, is that something that we can take forward as suggested? Yes, Chair, happy all those points. So on the wellbeing social inclusion, yes, we can absolutely seek to probe those issues through discussion and we'll be able to make sure we provide a good summary of the reps but also set out some of the work we have been doing. Because I think, Councillor Thornbrough, you've raised that point pretty soon. I think back in June as well, you highlighted that particular concern and having a nice wrap up session at the end sounds very sensible as well. Okay, thank you. I think just very quickly, Councillor Thornbrough. I do know that some Cambridge residents have actually raised very specific points about sort of areas for development within the city. They're existing established areas and they made some comments. And I do think that over the course of these meetings, I'd like to have the opportunity to discuss those specific points but I can... When they come up, yeah. Yeah, okay, great. Thank you very much. Unless there's... To me, you're on mute. Thank you very much for that. I don't know, I thought I clicked it. There we go. Councillor Shailor. Sorry, just a very quick comment that these things are all, each of them are part of the process. On County, we have a policy of health and all things and I'm guessing that well-being and social inclusion will be in all things. And so even though there are different themes, each one of them is applicable, isn't it? That's how I read it, isn't it? Well, yes it is. It's just that the plan, the first proposals we put, actually the whole plan has been predicated on those themes. You know, usually we had previous plans as jobs, homes, infrastructure. But then obviously with this one, and it's a joint plan, very early on we started looking at the themes that could form what we brought together. So climate change was a very big one. And then of course we had the others, well-being, social inclusion, biodiversity, et cetera. So yes, we just carry on with the way which we started to put it together. Okay. Thank you. Right, so can I take this then as an approval of this schedule? Do we all agree? Yes, yep, okay. Councillor Williams? Thank you very much. Okay, that's it. Thank you very much for that. So we agree with the schedule in front of us and the dates for the further ones will be made available later on. We've got the next one after this on the 24th of October and then 21st of November. And after that we'll know. I think there's others, but that's what it is. Please put those in your diary to make sure that we're all here. And if you need a sub, please assign them as soon as possible once you know. Thank you very much. Now we go on to item five, which is the first of the discussions we're going to have on the visions and aims of this group, as well as considering the climate change feedback that we've had that will be incorporated into the local plan. So I think I will now ask John Dixon to please introduce this item. Thank you, John. My short job now is to hand over to colleagues who are about to share their screen and the first speaker, I believe, is going to be Stuart, who's going to take us through the vision and aims. So the first point is the technical challenge. OK. Can everyone see that? OK? Yes. I'll make it wider. Thank you. There you go. Is that OK for you, Stuart? Can you see that? It's just gone to the notes page, actually. Maybe you want to share and reshare, that would be... Maybe unshare and then put up there. Sure, that's a sure. It's never easy. I'm just glad that I didn't get the job of doing that. I'm going. Can we go again? Good. That's good. There we go. Just see if it... That's good. Thanks, Kieran. Sure. Oh, it's kind of ahead of... Yeah. Over to you. Thanks, Kieran. So, yes, I'm going to talk to you about the vision and objectives prior to giving you, obviously, good opportunity for discussion. And I guess a bit of context before moving to the content is that clearly, as Kant said and Vandervaar's comments reflect, as an interrelationship between the vision and the aims and all the content of the plan. As such, there was a large number of comments attributed to the vision and aims, but in trying to group comments such that we could understand them in a kind of a clear form, a lot of those comments, it seemed to, as related more to the strategy in particular. And so within the strategy chapter and in presenting these comments to you, we've tried to focus the comments in Appendix A on those that directly relate to the vision and the aims, and we'll bring those ones that relate more directly to the strategy at the next meeting. Some of the other comments also shared on the vision and aims page related to the consultation timing and approach, and we're intending to bring those to you at the next meeting as well. So having kind of looked at all of those, while there was a reasonable number of comments on the vision and aims, overall, in terms of the web page, overall, there's a relatively limited number of comments directly attributed to the vision and aims, particularly when you compare that with the strategy, as we'll see next time round. Please, can you flip to one of the vision? Kevin, thanks. Brilliant. I'm not going to read you the vision, only to say that it touches on all of the seven themes that we've already referred to. So I'll just leave you a few seconds to reread it so you've got it in mind. Thanks, Karen. Would you mind flicking on again? So this is a very high-level summary, but I guess in broad terms, there was a significant amount of support from a wide range of organisations, so not any particular group. Flagging was a kind of clear theme, I guess that the vision connected through to the policies. There was particular support within those comments for the climate focus of the plan, but there was also various comments from different perspectives saying, for example, that it supported the NPPF, that it safeguarded landscapes and other comments. In terms of amendments to the vision, I guess there was a range of comments from, again, different perspectives. So there was a theme suggesting that of comments coming out, suggesting we should focus more on the environment, so specific comments about impacts on the River Cam and recognising the multifunctional benefits of the natural environment. There was some comment from developers suggesting the plan was too Cambridge-centric and we should support rural communities, and I think that means development there. There was a comment that we should maybe recognise Cambridge as a centre of excellence being the thing that makes Cambridge distinctive and successful and maybe suggesting that that's not currently there in the vision. And then an alternative vision was put through by Council for Protection of Rural England. This was actually a trip, they attributed it to the strategy policy, so you won't see it in your appendix, but it kind of shows you about the connection between vision and strategy clearly, but their view was that there's full employment in Cambridge already and there's clearly environmental challenges here, and so both to spread jobs to other areas of the country that might need them more and also to limit the climate impacts of the plan, their proposition for a reworked vision was to not have the jobs here and to push those to other areas of the country. Perhaps on a similar theme, the last two bullets you see there, I guess our support for the vision in itself but a suggestion that the policies and the allocations in the plan might conflict with that and suggesting that we should take a different approach so more limited development, for example. Thanks, Kiran, could you move on to the aims? So this is the aims set out repeated for you and again I won't talk through them I need to say again there's one for each of the themes of the plan and I'll just pause to give you a little while to remind yourself of what they say. Thanks, and if you move on, Kiran. So again there was broad support from the people that commented on these aims from a range of groups, not one particular proportion of the responses. Amendments were shared and I think I'd characterise them generally as be more specific. So for example, on water, a number of respondents suggested be more specific about considering the impacts on chalk screams and be more ambitious or specific about what we're going to do about water supply that came particularly from individuals and community groups. There was on the homes the comment about being more ambitious to meet full affordable needs and including sites in the rural area and building small homes I think particularly from a range of developers and those comments that you see there on infrastructure came again I think from community groups particularly. In terms of suggested additional aims Central Bedfordshire Council suggested that connectivity in terms of within and across the boundaries of Greater Cambridge was a golden thread that we might reflect on in the themes. The comments about village separation and identity and retaining distinctive character was concerned and raised by Tavisham and Stapleford Parish Councils I think connected to specific proposals in the plan. There was a comment from one or two individuals particularly about preserving greenbelt and equally comments from one or two individuals about nurturing Cambridge's development as centre of excellence and the last comment about inequality I think came from individuals but again I think the suggestion was that while the aim on wellbeing does seek to provide for the needs of everyone I think their view was perhaps the actual content of the plan might not support the needs of those who are the most socially disadvantaged. Could you move on Kieran, thanks. Just in terms of next steps clearly we'll be reviewing the detailed wording including taking on boards all of those comments and comments members make here. As noted at the beginning a lot of the issues are interrelated with the actual content of the plan and we'll seek to draw on these comments on the vision and those that relate more widely to the strategy in the next meeting and then moving on from there. I think it's probably just to say that's the end of me talking. It's over to you for discussion. Thank you very much Stuart. Interesting to see the feedback summarised as you have done. Obviously there's positives and there's negatives and there's in-betweens. I think I recall one or two parish council's comments about we won't be able to deliver on this. That it was to monitor how it was implemented for example. But yeah there's a lot in there and thank you for summarising it as you have because there was a lot in that paperwork. I see three hands. Sorry I'm not sure which one came from I think it was Councillor Thumbra. Thanks Tumi. Thank you for the feedback. One of the points that does come up a lot is and I think rightly so is that it's not the protection of the chalk streams but I think the problem is that the level for real protection the level they need to reach is a European standard. It's not any kind of local or standard. They need to be protected to actually have the protection where a planning application would need to take full consideration of the chalk streams. There's a catch 22 that even the local MPs now have a group in Parliament discussing the chalk streams because they're such a unique they've been very adapted and they don't have adequate protection. Reaching adequate protection as most people have commented on is nigh on impossible I think and the complexity of this issue is something that needs to be better understood otherwise it will continue to be a lot of frustration and despair about these important features and the passionate people feel about them. So it's very difficult to try and achieve what people want within a planning policy because the background protection is not there but that's not understood. Thanks. Just to say does that then or do you see then that we have to find a way of clarifying that within our plan? In the evidence the evidence about biodiversity clearly sets out the different levels of protection and what natural features are fully protected and then how other natural features are protected and the evidence is clear but how it's interpreted and the general understanding about what a city wildlife site means, what a county wildlife site means, what a SSI site means, what chalk streams there or people assume a SSI site is very protected because by nature they're very special but the true protection comes through the European level of protection if we want to protect the SSI or chalk streams in a different way I don't think we as planning policy makers I don't think that's within our capability but it would need to be some higher level legislation or through I believe we just need to make that clear in a way, okay thanks Councillor Simon Smith thank you next Thank you chair I want to just say a few words about the vision vision statements are notoriously difficult to write and they need to pass two tests I mean the first test is could this vision statement apply to anywhere else and if you take out Greater Cambridge and put in my hometown Great Grimsby it would apply so I do agree with the comment that was made that there's no expression of the distinctiveness of Cambridge of Greater Cambridge in this vision statement and the things that make Greater Cambridge so distinctive really do relate to the world of class education health and technology sectors that we've got in the Greater Cambridge area and the second test is does it really tell us what's different between now and where we want to be and just reflecting all the comments in the 160 odd pages of comments that were in the attached to the document it's fairly clear that there is misgivings about growth for growth's sake so what we've got to be expressing are the desirable outcomes that come from growth and I believe that they can be expressed through the the aims the seven aims and that the vision statement expresses the whole is greater than the sum of those seven aims so it's a difficult challenge I think as council where I was intimating at the beginning in his first comments that this is something that we might need to revisit at the end of the process but I don't think we're there yet with a vision statement that is going to be worthy of the plan that the emerging plan that we have okay well thanks for that I think what I might do is maybe take the comments and then go back to Stuart to give us some feedback on that Councilor Timbick yeah thank you yeah I have two points one which relates strongly to what Simon Smith just said and in particular I was drawn towards some of the feedback that we got that talks about well couldn't we say something about Cambridge as being a centre for excellence I'm not quite sure what the phrase is because I don't want to define it in a two exclusive sense I do think that it's kind of odd to ignore the wider role of Cambridge in the world and so to describe it as a centre of technology or knowledge or something like that I probably wouldn't go for the educational but because I think that becomes a bit too much the city and not the rest but I do think that we're missing something there and we need to distinguish it from from everywhere else if we can I think the second point I had was different sort of points about the vision I remember making the point about the wording of this expression of a big decrease in our climate impacts and a big increase in the quality of everyday life and I think there was as a result of what I said a change was made to that and actually I'm not sure that it really has done it because I'm reading it now and I just don't think it adds up really a place where a big decrease in our climate impacts comes with a big increase in the quality of everyday life it's a very neat rhetorical coupling but I just have a hard time justifying a big decrease in our climate impacts I mean I think I'm fully subscribing to what we're trying to do here but I'm just saying that you have to describe it with a bit more accuracy otherwise it's easily criticised I mean our climate impacts consist of all the existing development we've got which probably isn't going to change very much and so we aren't going to influence that very much by planning and growth we don't see how we're going to decrease the climate impacts of the existing settlements we've got by the way we have by what we put in this local plan we're surely looking for something that decreases the climate impacts of what is developed from now forward and there is other policies in other parts of our council's activities which are going to try and change what we've already got and I just don't think it's logically defensible Interesting comment, I mean I take your point I guess the what's already built has its own issues which can only be improved if we go back and go and include things like we have to improve on what is already here but the focus of this is on what is to come Yeah, exactly I don't know what the phrase is but I just think that it's something that ought to be revisited because it just seems a bit clunky and a bit difficult to defend Okay, we can have a look at that to see if we can make it better. Thank you for that Chancellor van der Waier I think you're next Hello, yes I Councillor Smith having proposed to revisit the vision at the end which wasn't quite got that far in my thinking but I think that is actually quite a good idea because a lot of time now talking about the vision it probably doesn't capture quite everything that we want maybe we could have another discussion I mean the particular inclusion for example I don't think it's in there as long as you're left I think my a bit of feedback which might come into how we articulate vision the sort of idea that the change that's happening and the change that's proposed to be shaped by the local plan limiting that change limiting the amount of development would be better for the environment and I think that the plan obviously disquies with that and I'm very supportive of how the plans approach that where we're trying to find ways in which change can be sort of captured to improve the environment so that the overall result is better than what's there now and also the importance of the sort of social equity impact of the plan a lot of changes needed is because the what we have now has become so inexorable in Cambridge in South Cambridge and just sort of saying we need to limit the change in fact we'll compound that inequality we'll sort of transfer that inequality actually out so forcing people who work here to continue having long distances from outside the area and so we're addressing not only the environmental impacts of the people who come from outside the area to work here but also the equity issues around that and that balance and the potentials for some complementarity are an important part of what I see is about what's good about this plan so I think that if we can capture that so the overall vision especially the aims are really supportive of and I think largely the comments do support that okay thank you for that the last thing we want to do is make the inequality worse but come back to taking that on board later I think Councillor Williams thank you very much chair just a few points really first one on the vision statement I tend to agree I think it was Councillor Smith who first said it I tend to agree I think the vision statement is quite general I would maybe be tempted to use the word land and it could really apply anywhere so I would like us to try and capture within the vision statement some of the unique things about I mean we do we talked about Councillor Thornbrugh mentioned chalk streams we probably would want to specifically mention that but we do have some unique you know natural environments in this area chalk streams, Fenedge you know around Swavesy places like that so I think maybe some wording to sort of talk about the sort of unique protecting enhancing the unique environmental capital of our area would be helpful I think and make it a bit more Cambridge specific and of course we are we have the slight issue that we are dealing with two quite different areas I mean the city is very different to South Cam so I know to an extent it's got to be sort of all things to all people but I think we probably could do a bit more to sort of capture some of the uniqueness of it I mean in terms of the sort of points that were made in the officer's presentation I mean I might as well put on the table now and I think you probably all know this already I just flatly disagree with the approach that's taken to development I think the numbers are far too high I don't accept the methodology as to why they're so far over standard method I'm not going to win that debate I don't think on this committee but you know I flatly disagree that we need to build at that level over standard method so personally I do think there is contradiction between that level of development and our aspirations to protect the environment we may welcome back to that but I leave it there for today one other small point slightly it's South Cam's Cambridge issue again I notice in the vision statement makes a reference to reducing or minimizing reliance on the private car I think we all agree with that as a general aim that's absolutely fine but the reality is in the real world in villages in South Cam's you have to have a car it's not practical in many cases in many villages not to have one so I do slightly worry that as those of us on South Cam's planning committee no we end up with a lot of applications where there's just inadequate parking and developers tend to cite fairly general environmental goals but we all know that actually you're just going to create a problem with people parking all over the place so whilst I don't disagree with the vision statement in fairly general terms when it comes to the specifics of it I am interested and concerned that we get the specifics right and we don't end up building places in villages with no car parking when people have no reasonable alternative other than to have a car I hear you on that obviously there's when we come to the detail of the policies we'll have to take that into account to make sure that it's not one size fits so thank you and I think Councillor Shailer you're next thank you chair and I'm going to go against the previous one a little bit here that's fine that's why we're talking I mean there's a general consensus that what we have now is not sustainable there are a lot of legacy from the past and quite recent past as well and so to see growth as an opportunity to fix stuff I think is quite good and it also helps some of the previous things and so sometimes we see I read through some of the comments quite quickly actually I didn't read all but there seems to be anti-growth for anti-growth sake you know just to put the other side of it and to make a particular point I love that phrase connectivity as a golden thread that runs through everything and of course we're working on 20-minute communities and transport hubs and a lot to do with transport and when you put in active transport routes of course that's useful for existing communities just as much as it is for the future community so the future growth actually supports greening the existing infrastructure and in fact by having more numbers often it supports better infrastructure so growth is not necessarily something that is always environment wrecking and all that sort of stuff if it's done right it's an opportunity for us to actually fix some historic problems well some good points there obviously opposite views but perhaps we can find a good way in between but yes you both make valid points but at the end of the day what we're looking at is being able to create a plan that works to the best that it can provides for the needs of our specific greater coverage which is different to a lot of other places in the country we know that it's just getting it to that point okay we need to move on I just want to make sure that we cover everything we need to cover Councillor Thumbra very quickly just quickly I just want to say that under the NPPF they define sustainable development which is what we all want and the three objectives is economic development. Growth is part of the economic objective and I do wish that we use growth much more in that context so also under economic it's growth, innovation improve productivity and I think I really think that the term growth ought to be used within that context of the economy with these other things that are important thanks thank you very much I'll call on Stuart just as you know you've heard the comments how do we move forward with this just to say thank you I don't think it's the place where we're clearly not putting a new or revised vision or aims to you today so I think that the purpose is really for us to listen and reflect on what you said so I think it's all been really helpful input the one thing I just throw out there is a kind of thought to continue to ponder on in terms of the nature of the vision accepting all the comments from everybody is whether the a question for us all to confirm is whether the vision is a vision for the place that planning can support or whether it only sets out the vision for planning to achieve and there's that kind of differentiation and definition in my mind socially set out say what the place looks like in 2050 or 2041 and noting that planning will only achieve some of that but other things will act to impact on that hopefully that makes sense so far as it goes but that's just the thought in my mind to ponder on as we develop the vision but it's already very helpful comments so I really appreciate those thank you I think it's the vision for the place in 2041 John do you have any comments if you can move us on to the next the next discussion point Mr Kelly I see Mr Kelly John hello Hi Stephen sorry it's just an observation some really really interesting comments and views expressed there that what we'll do is we'll try and take away and think about how we reconcile them I heard the comments about inequality and the role of that some people were talking about social justice not being fully considered as well and of course part of our challenge one of our biggest challenges on inequality relates to housing so we access to quality housing and so on for some but I think it will be interesting to see how we reconcile how we try and pull together and reconcile those differences I think a clear statement or clarification next time around around this point around the vision for the place or the vision for the planning of the place I think might help us to address Councillor Williams's point or in fact Councillor Smith's initial point about precision in the vision because one could be very broad and distinct or indeed the easiest thing to do for us to do is to say what the planning will be like but I don't think that necessarily engage all of the four key themes that we've highlighted but I think we need to move on John is that right Yes we do Thanks for that So we're now going to bring the everyone see that Yes we can Sorry John did you want to say something Yes we can see it You want me to crack on John Yes Okay thank you So I'm going to do a bit of a treble act now between myself Nancy Kimberley and Kieran Davis I'm taking you through the climate change section and a brief look back I'm sure you all know and remember this already but obviously back in the first conversation document we identified a range of themes climate change being one of those themes and I think we had quite a resounding level of response to that first conversation with people saying that climate change was very much ranked as their highest priority for the plan to deal with So next slide please Kieran So what we've identified to date is a kind of wide role for planning to play in responding to climate change So again this slide is just very briefly summarizing the kind of policy areas that we've looked at so far supporting renewable energy generation switch to sustainable transport and low emissions vehicles water efficiency standards which Nancy will talk about in shortly materials with low quality carbon and circular economy is the word that's missing from the slide there zero carbon buildings and then looking at green infrastructure sustainable drainage systems and climate resilience So that's all what was included in the first proposal documents so next slide please Kieran and we've also got very extensive evidence space which I'm sure many of you will be familiar with particularly in relation to our net zero carbon policy that we worked with bioregional and other consultants on developing and that was all published alongside the first proposals document So next slide please So yeah our first kind of big policy and one that we actually went into quite a lot of detail on in the first proposals was our net zero carbon new buildings so this is the policy that looks at setting the levels of energy use allowed for a new development how renewable energy should be used to meet that energy need and then it talked about kind of whole life carbon emissions and embodied carbon as well because that's the other key piece of net zero carbon So in terms of the key issues raised in response to consultation we did get I would say very strong support overall from a range of consultees so parish councils, community groups statutory consultees some developers as well as local interest groups were very supportive of the net zero carbon policy there were some useful suggestions for areas for improvement particularly some talking about areas for example around more refined approach to embodied carbon and then there were others for example the University of Cambridge supporting the kind of general thrust of the policy but requiring or requesting some flexibility in how some of those targets were applied particularly for different building types where a slightly more nuanced approach might be needed to some of those targets those objecting to the policy and it was primarily developers and the likes of the home builders federation the objections that we were getting were that you know the delivery of zero carbon is not something for the planning system to be getting involved in they very much felt it was for the review of building regulations and the forthcoming future home standard they raised some concerns around technical feasibility with some stating that our targets were only really applicable in places like London and there were concerns about the impact on viability there was also some concerns raised about how we would actually implement the policy with some questions raised as to whether there was enough skills within the service to implement such a policy with others raising the need for more detailed guidance to be developed so that we could make sure that developers were implementing the policy in the right way I think also something else that came through quite strongly from a number of consultees and this was particularly parish councils and some local residents and some local residents and some local residents was actually they felt that there was a lack of targets and reference being made to existing buildings and they raised this in relation to issues around embodied carbon trying to make sure that we're reusing buildings wherever possible so next slide which I believe takes us onto Nancy Thanks Emma so yeah which is our integrated water management study which includes water cycle strategy and strategic flood risk assessments next slide please Kieran and obviously there's also the water industry have their own plans as well and the water resources regional plan and the water resource management plans that are being produced by Cambridge water for greater Cambridge area they'll be coming out in the draft form in the next month next slide please Kieran so we have a policy on water efficiency in new developments and we were setting out that we would require very high water efficiency levels of 80 litres per person per day for residential and full credits for category what they're one of Bream for non residential in the table below you can see that typically water use at the moment is 143 litres per person per day our current local plans use the optional national building regulations standard of 110 litres per person per day but we're aiming to go even lower than that 80 litres per person per day and similarly on non residential we were going for the full credits for the Bream category for water which is currently used in the Cambridge local plan the south Cambridge area has slightly less of two credits next slide please Kieran so the key issues that were raised in the responses to the first proposals were there was generally strong support for the policy direction from a range of public bodies including the environment agency, environmental groups and individuals there was obviously a lot of concern about the level of growth in the plan itself given the water stress in the area and its impact on the environment and chalk streams but I think that's going to be talked about more in the next meeting of JLPag to do with the strategy so we're talking more about this water efficiency levels really in this policy some of the comments were that we're going to need further evidence to support this level which will probably be in the form of the detailed water cycle strategy we'll also need to continue with our collaborative working with the water companies and the environment agency and there was two different sides to the water efficiency level somewhere in clear support but others particularly developers thought that the levels were unrealistic and would have an impact on the viability of developments and that we should be sticking to the 110 litres that's in the building regulations there were several comments on the potential of rainwater harvesting and greywater recycling to achieve the levels some in clear support others saying that there would be problems with maintenance the amount of roof on particular flats there wouldn't be much roof area to collect water and obviously because there isn't much rainfall in the area how would rainwater harvesting actually work there were also comments from the environment agency and some of the developers that we'd need to provide more guidance on how to actually implement the policy and how to monitor its effectiveness next slide please Kieran so now back to Emma hello again so our next policy was on designing for a changing climate policy this is our kind of climate change adaptation policy and kind of set out really how the design of developments needs to take account of our changing climate and respond to extreme weather events so heat waves quite topical given our recent summer and also issues such as flash flooding so again I think in terms of the key issues raised we had a very strong level of support shown for the policy particularly across members of the public parish councils, community groups developers as well well certain developers and in particular there was quite strong support for the role of green infrastructure and also site-wide approaches so this policy does mention things like sustainable drainage systems with more detail then being provided in a separate policy which again Nancy is going to cover shortly there were some calls for including additional elements of green infrastructure so we had some calls for including reference to green walls for example which we've always been a little bit wary of I would say but possibly open to some discussion on that a bit more detail on sustainable drainage as well so there was calls from I think it came from the environment agency on the need for clarity on the climate change allowances that are related to sustainable drainage systems and how you size those so some quite technical comments we had some such as the Cambridge donor economics group who was saying that the policy should actually go further provide specific targets for developers to meet some of which may well get picked up in the more detailed sustainable drainage policy for example and then on the other hand you had some developers who felt that the councils hadn't really adequately considered the impacts on viability of the policy and again suggesting that this was more of a matter that should be dealt with via building regulations and not planning next slide please Kieran back to Nancy again I think thanks yeah so this was the policy area relating to flooding and integrated water management the policy would set out how development should address flood risk implement integrated water management including sustainable drainage systems in new development next slide please so the key issues raised where there's generally a lot of support for the policy direction and the use of brown and green roofs permeable surfaces and suds to manage water at the source and to reduce flooding there's also talk about the development should not be permitted in flood risk areas such as the flood plane and take into account climate change so generally the changing climate meaning that we have more storms and drier periods there also talks about that there should be wider flood risk betterment particularly from the environment agency and the cam valley forum and there should be larger areas set aside for storage of flood waters there are lots of comments about suds generally and that they should be designed to take into account multiple things such as climate change improving water quality benefits for amenity and biodiversity but also to make sure that they didn't have an impact on buildings and archaeology and there are also issues about sort of integrated water management and the reuse of water and again comments about that the scale of growth is out of line with water resources available in this area next slide please Karen me again so our next policy this is our kind of standalone renewable energy generation policy so this talked about how the plan would support kind of renewable energy generation projects and associated infrastructure how they need to be planned and designed and it also talked about identifying broad areas considered suitable for certain types of renewable energy so again I think we had quite a lot of support for the policy I think a lot of people do now recognise the role of standalone renewable energy generation and enabling us to get to our net zero carbon targets I think there were a number of suggestions about kind of improvements to the policy so additional things that could be referenced I think we had a call for the plan to identify an area for the delivery of an accessible anaerobic digestion plant which is quite specific lots of calls for including requirements about integrating community energy projects into new developments and also thinking about some of the more innovative approaches so thinking about smart grids and battery storage provision as well we did have some calls from some people about a need for a holistic district-wide strategy for renewable energy production and there were also concerns raised from some about the capacity of grid infrastructure and whether there is enough capacity in the grid to support things like heat pumps and electric vehicle charging we did get some concerns raised from the campaign to protect rural communities in England about how the policy wouldn't actually stop the loss of farmland for renewable energy generation and there were calls from a number of statutory consultees and also third sector organisations talking about the policy to be more clear about protecting the character and appearance of the landscape and heritage assets with clear guidance on where wind, solar farms and energy infrastructure is considered acceptable. Next slide Ciaran and I think these are a couple of policies for you to cover. Yeah that's right even though so yeah this policy reducing waste and sporting the circular economy so control how developers should manage the waste generated by construction how new developments should provide for waste and recycling storage and collection and how circular economy principles should be considered in development proposals just to recap this policy so will require developers to submit a construction environmental management plan ensure that all proposals provide adequate flexible accessible storage space collection systems and for major developments also requires developers to submit a circular economy statement so in terms of the responses strong support across the board really for the policy from a variety of organisations and particularly a lot of respondents expressed support for reusing existing material but sorry existing buildings rather than demolition and linked to that specific support for underground waste systems support from County Council with particularly useful suggestions to make the policy more legible to the general public and also they suggested close collaboration to develop the approach given the policies relevance to the minerals and waste plan of the county some issues were raised around the scale of the scale of development which policies should apply to so particularly some developers sort of narrow the policies scope suggesting that should only be applied to major developments and contrastingly some group such as the Cambridge donor economics action group bit of a mouthful literally wanted to expand the policy scope so they argued that targets were needed to ensure that developers actually deliver the policy and then there were also objections to this issue being dealt with in local planning policy so the home builders federation felt that was an issue for building regulations and national regulation rather than the local plan so moving on so this next policy supporting land-based carbon sequestration just to recap so carbon sequestration is the process of storing carbon in a carbon sink in terms of the high level summary of the policy direction it will control development of land that is capable of becoming an important carbon sink in particular undisturbed or undrained it support the creation of land and habitats that play a role as carbon sinks and promote approaches that minimise soil disturbance, compaction and disposal during construction projects so it also related to that in South Cambridge here, Peterland is main located in the very north of the district so in terms of responses to the consultation of the policy strong support for the policy from a range of organisations individuals and many of those commenting can see the value of protecting sites and land that is important for carbon sequestration which is not protected in current policy protections there were no specific objections to the policy itself but some developers suggested adding to the policy to recognise the role that green infrastructure can provide as part of new developments in the process of carbon sequestration the respondents suggested improvements including calls to enhance tree canopy cover across Great Cambridge plays an important role in the sequestration process and also to consider the role that green belt and lower grade agricultural land can play in sequestration process other recommendations including calls to prioritise approaches that deliver wider nature solutions and environmental benefits so over to you I think yeah finally just some next steps now in terms of policy development so in terms of the net zero carbon policies it is now going to be a case of working through we did have some quite technical comments submitted so we're going to work through those with our evidence consultants just so that we can formulate a kind of proper response to those comments but very much a case of continuing with the policy on the climate emergency policy we do need to make some amendments to that policy because as you'll know we now have the new part of building regulations we aren't allowed to duplicate what is in part O so we will need to make some amendments to parts of that policy that referred to previous methodologies for assessing overheating risk but still very much promoting that design led approach to reducing the risk of overheating renewable energy this is a rapidly moving area from the mini budget that we had the other week so we have got some landscape work that we need to review now to consider areas suitable for different scales of onshore wind and we also need to keep a close eye now on national policy to see the direction in which that now moves given the announcements around relaxing some of the planning regime in relation to onshore wind but we don't have the detail of what's going to happen there yet so keep a close eye on that and we also need to continue working with partners like the Greater Cambridge Partnership on grid capacity issues that also links into policy that we've got in the infrastructure chapter Nancy did you want to pick up the water and flooding yes thanks so on water efficiency we're now going to do further work looking at the sort of supporting evidence that we can gather from local stakeholders on trying to reach that 80 litres per person per day and the levels for the non housing and we received recently a letter saying that the government was going to look further into water efficiency in new developments in retrofits and revised building regs so we're going to keep an eye on all of that on flooding and drainage the county council as a lead local flood authority are updating their supplementary planning document on flooding and drainage which we're going to be involved with we're also doing some looking at some of the sites that in the proposed local plan sort of screening to see if they need further work at any mitigation that would be needed on those sites Ciaran do you want to pick up the last one or Emma yeah I can pick up the last one not a problem yep circular economy is quite a new policy area for us so we need to do a little bit more detail now in developing that policy and I think it will be particularly important for us to work in partnership with colleagues both in our shared waste service but also at Cambridgeshire County Council to make sure that our policies are kind of aligning on the issue of circular economy and I think that now brings us on to the discussion wow that is some information thank you very much Emma Nancy and Ciaran that's yeah members just a comment from me it's not you know maybe a comment really it's just I was kind of maybe not surprised but a bit surprised at the level of some of the comments from developers about you can't deal with the same planning it's got you know put it to a building regulations I wonder why um I'll leave it at that Councillor Thumbra I just want I just need to I think I need to make a declaration of interest that um I have been over my years in Cambridge been involved in several local groups and I am involved in the Cambridge donor economics action group which they're not they know it's a group it's a informal gathering of people to discuss donor economics but um I wasn't involved in any of their analysis of the consultation or any of the feedback they provided um just a few more things I think these emerging policies are really exciting and I think the officers have done a fantastic job in pulling these together and I know a lot of other local authorities are looking with interest at these to see how they're further developed and eventually how the inspector will take them I think the I think the comments about retrofitting is very interesting I know I think by 2050 something like 95% of the buildings in 2050 we have now and they they have created the you know it's really it's problematic about heat loss and uh using too much water now but we have again but we our policies may need are involving with new build and we can definitely sort out the new build sorting out the existing buildings is really problematic taking the policies as far as we can to deal with that is a challenge and I I think it's great that we're looking for that and the other really good thing I think the policies have is actually yeah I think it includes testing the buildings in use to see if they match the aspirations I think that's really really good and I hope that can be retained and um um actually the evidence from that will feed back into it be really useful thank you Thanks for that Katie um Council of Underwater Hello um yeah as Katie just said I think pushing these policies of course a wide range as far as we can within our understanding of the parameters of the um uh of the policy making process uh and then arguing the case of the with the inspector is entirely the right approach really supportive of that um uh and the building race one that you referred to Jimmy um is a good illustration of that I mean we are uh discussing things in the context of the local plan that are that relate to the building around fabric and uh design um we're discussing them because they're strategically important to us we have decided that they are important to what we want our place to be and um which is an entirely different motivation for deciding on what the building for the for the building works themselves um uh and obviously there's a complexity of the of the interaction which um there's been a couple of comments on too which is which is a frustration uh but um uh I'm very glad that we're we are pushing as much as we can thank you thank you very much we definitely need to support you know the the uh the best level of um you know building qualities that we can um I mean emergency the you know it's climate emergency now we can't step back we've got to do the best that is possible to do and if you know at the end of the day we get to the um inspector and the inspector says whatever it is you know you need to um bring that down maybe but they're pushing very high standards um otherwise you know what's the point of saying there's a climate emergency anyway um stop ranting um Councillor Smith yes um thank you chair uh I think this is probably the most innovative progressive set of policies in the local plan and as has been discussed we are very much at the edge of what might be possible to get adopted um but I'm absolutely behind pushing the envelope on this and I think the comments that came from the construction industry are quite instructive because they've shown to uh they're revealed to us the kinds of objections all that we can expect at the examination and how we'll be tested on this and so it gives us plenty of time in order to build up the evidence base to be able to defend these policies um now it's quite interesting that some of the aggressive parts of the construction industry um are aware of the risks of developing stranded assets so in other words buildings that'll be unusable in 20 30 years time because they haven't designed in for uh uh heat levels of heat and energy costs and so on and so forth and there's others that just want to say well this is not viable I'm not going to make a profit and therefore this has got to all be set aside and uh I don't know what climate change is so I think one of the things that we're going to need to do is demonstrate how all this can be done and delivered technically and within that I think the useful frameworks are the carbon budgets and the whole life carbon assessments now when it comes to that it's it's kind of like a double-edged sword because then we need to be able to demonstrate that we've got a carbon budget and the whole life carbon assessment for the whole plan and so um so it does present us with a fundamental challenge for this plan I sort of want to turn that, thank you very much for listening to me again Thank you, thank you, thank you for that I think you know you mentioned being able to deliver this uh uh policies technically but it's not just that it's also being able to monitor how it's implemented and make sure that they implement it properly and correctly um which will take a lot of resource I would imagine going forward and we need to find a way of uh of ensuring that yes you know we can we can do that um okay Tesla Williams your turn sorry thank you chair um just a couple of points on on water really um I was interested about um the feedback that we've got on the proposed 80 litres per person per day policy and I remember raising some questions about that when it came to south cams um scrutiny I mean it you know again in principle yes I think it's greater there if it can be achieved and I certainly agree with what's been said before that we have to be ambitious but I also um do think we need to be realistic um when I looked into this you know inevitably in an area like south cams and Cambridge where you get very little rain I mean we had nothing here for about three months this year um you need an interface between a great between a rainwater system for example and the mains because if there's no rainwater the mains needs to come in and back it up so you can flush your loo well actually that's quite complicated when you look into it is how that actually works and um you know you need um there are health risks if that if it is not done properly so you are imposing costs on the homeowner um as well as um you know or potentially we're imposing costs on homeowners in terms of maintaining these systems so whilst I think it's a great idea and I certainly support it in principle I am uneasy about the practicality of all of this because it will need backing up one way um or another um and um and you know I we need to take seriously what the comments are and I'd be kind of interested in what the officers say about that I mean I did ask at the time in south cams scrutiny if we had any you know um similar sort of large scale um situations where this 80 litres per day per person had actually worked not not not some small developments in London which I think there are but you know scaled up across thousands and thousands of homes um so that concerns me I'm not saying we shouldn't have it but but I think we do need to be very careful on that one um just in terms of the water more generally just picking up on some of the the comments you know about the the extent to which we can in in fact sustain the level of development that's proposed I mean I think it's not controversial that um you know our own reports say that to go for the sort of medium level we're going for um we do need regional level solutions I mean I think I and under lots of other people would be interested to know what the plan is is if those regional level solutions don't come on board I mean yes they're planning a reservoir for the latter part of the plan period actually but you know we all know how these things go what if that reservoir is delayed five years and we're talking about the reservoir coming online in 2042 which is the year after the plan finishes I mean what actually would be the result of that because what we don't want to get is into a situation where if it's still there you know we've got five year land supply we can't possibly meet and the plan collapses um so I would like some clarity around what if you like the contingencies are if those regional water level solutions don't actually come on board in the plan period or at least until so late in the plan period that they're not actually all that useful thank you very much for that interesting I mean this I think for me this is where for some reason many people seem to think water resources is down to planning it's not you know we have a responsibility to you know provide homes and you know places for you know offices and R&Ds as we have here um to the level of you know to meet the need that is identified in our area but we have to then work with those who will provide things like water electricity utilities which is not our responsibility but obviously we have to work with them to provide this so you know hopefully we don't get into a situation where we don't have a five year house and land supply but you know I'm sure that Mr Kelly can perhaps tell us a bit more about you know what might happen or what the procedure will be if you know the the resources being planned for by water resources doesn't come online when it should or when they say it will over to you Stephen thank you to me I I can't offer you a solution at this moment in time as I think Nancy highlighted the water companies the kind of to me is quite right it's not it's not essentially a show that we run the delivery of the water resources but we are tracking very carefully and closely the water resource management plans alongside the environment agency and we suspect that one of the key issues will be how can the plan track or ensure that a kind of fracture in delivery of that infrastructure doesn't create the kind of conflicts with adverse impacts on the environment that we know the communities more widely are concerned about. I think once we have sight of and we've asked the water companies went through our consultants and directly to provide the data that sits under their assumptions about increases in consumption associated with their plans and the infrastructure that they bring that they're suggesting they will be bringing forward in those 20 year plans will be able to take a kind of more considered view in terms of the consequences for delay as Councillor Williams is right the Anglin water to present a confident position in terms of being able to meet future demand but some of that infrastructure is big kit stuff like reservoirs and is subject to its own planning processes that risk delay. Other elements are perhaps not just water conservation but actually other elements of infrastructure are more tangible and in the near distance for example in terms of bulkwater or the potential for bulkwater transfers or alternative supplies being used to the chalk aquifer but again we and the Environment Agency are awaiting the formulation of all of that within the water resource management plans and we'll have to take stock. I think we share the concern that the plan shouldn't be promoting a level of growth that in turn makes us vulnerable to a fracture in the five year housing land supply because we cannot deliver with our adverse environmental consequences. There's quite a way to go obviously in the local plan timeline in which we expect both the funding and indeed the planning of this infrastructure to happen but for now I think all we can offer is an assurance that it most certainly isn't a superficial or peripheral component of the strategy that we're putting together or indeed where we will end up with the plan. Thank you for that Stephen I see Katie, councillor Pumbra I just wanted to come back briefly on the Councillor Williams question about reduced water down to 80 litres per person per day. In northern Europe there's a lot of examples where this has been the regulation and it's been implemented and also there's quite a lot of buildings in Britain where the Victorians had really good wells associated with each property and as mains water came in the wells were supplemented and used for flushing toilets so that those homes have very low water usage because the main thing that we need to stop toilets being flushed with mains water that's the simplest way to get to 80 litres per person per day is to get the systems using another source but you're absolutely right if there is a tank it's always designed to be topped up by mains water if there is a lack of rainwater. I guess this is where in water harvesting and all that comes in. Do you have any further comments before I call on Emma perhaps to come back there's a lot in there Thank you for the support for what we're trying to do really. I think I note Councillor Smith's point about it being quite useful for us to have the comments from industry. If I'm honest there's nothing in there that I wasn't already expecting to some extent but yeah we'll be working with our consultants to look through the more detailed technical comments just to make sure that we take those on board and have a proper response to those comments. Yeah but we shall carry on. I do have a question for you actually. You made a comment about some concern about green walls did I hear that correctly? Yes you did. Any expansion please. Yeah there's two different types of green wall systems there's a kind of more traditional roots in the ground kind of green wall system that we're supportive of when they've come in with applications you then also have the modular green wall systems which we and I say we kind of myself and colleagues in landscape we are at the moment quite wary of because they are quite intensive from a management perspective but also from an inputs perspective so water and also feeding and because they require a long maintenance plan to make sure they keep looking good and that they don't just shrivel up and die so I think it's something that we can really look at and perhaps it would be useful to look for us to think about a bit more in the way of guidance of the sort of thing that we would want to see where green walls are being proposed because they do have other benefits but it's making sure that those benefits aren't outweighed by them not being properly maintained so I think that's just something for us to consider moving forwards looking to see if we do want to go down the route of including green walls developing some more guidance on what makes a successful and truly sustainable green wall system. No thank you for that because that is something I'm definitely very interested in I think we just probably why my ears picked up on that one because obviously there's plenty of benefits but yes I take the points that you've made maintaining them and making sure that they look at they can be properly I guess they don't cost too much the other way which is too much water and all that. That's great thank you Nancy do you want to comment on that? Sorry I just wanted to come back on the 80 litres per person per day and that just in our outline water cycle study the consultants did sort of look at the kind of cost and the viability a bit more in that and actually they found that it doesn't add a considerable extra amount on top according to the figures that they provided but obviously we're working towards a more detailed water cycle study now so we can work with them and I know that the water companies and the environment agency are also very keen to provide us with examples and evidence that we could use an examination in the future. Okay thanks for that one of the other things that occurred to me as we went through was talking about increasing the tree cover tree canopy cover across the district isn't this something that we have as part of our Dublin nature strategy? No? Katie yes the the doubling nature strategy is specifically to devil special areas of nature but it also includes vision about planting more trees generally in developments but there is the city council currently has a very specific tree planting policy that's being tested it's being used as a research project and the results I think the officers are actually coordinating with the tree officers about the results because it could be part of an evidence based specifically about how trees can be used to help stop fast flow of water and to actually cooling effect in urban areas and for stock buildings over heating so it's very specific it's not just tree planting for biodiversity it's tree planting to improve the built environment if you like okay thanks Stuart thank you it's just a note that there is a tree policy in the biodiversity and green spaces theme so we will get the opportunity to explore that issue much more fully at that meeting too okay thank you very much for that right so I suppose is there anything that you would like from us going forward after this if something came to us you know we've discussed tonight yes but what if we had other ideas can we forward that to yourselves with references whatever you know we can that will help with you know putting the policies or developing the policies further because it's a lot of information we're looking at today and I appreciate all the work that you've done to put it all together for us John we're always interested in what members have to say to us to me so of course any useful examples great for us received clear you've given us a lot of food for thought and you know as well as drawing all this together perhaps the end of these sessions clearly the next steps in terms of our decision-making process we will be looking to provide more detailed responses to all these comments as part of your consultation statement so hopefully we can pick up on some of these issues as we draw out why we're taking the next steps on these policies we'll be providing you with more detailed responses so part of the decision-making process this isn't the end of the story there'll still be a chance of those issues but I think I speak for everyone when I said we found this a really useful process and hope you all have as well certainly have I think my brain is spinning already is that the end of the presentations that we have for this evening that's great wow there's a lot of I mean all I can say is thank you very much to each one of you for this work we definitely are on the right track and we definitely are pushing the envelope and I'd like to see us push it to the farthest extent that we can I guess at this point let's turn the meeting to a close unless anyone has any other business that they would like to raise no members? I would actually I can't see you Simon oh well you don't have to see me can you hear me you know what I look like at the beginning of the meeting I think you read out instructions about you know we might have to take a vote and I have a roll called and so on if it was a disagreement and I think this is a joint local plan and I think there's been a degree of consensus around all of these issues which is quite remarkable given we've got we arrive at this from different political perspectives or represent different political parties I think it's a great testament to the work that we do together the two the two councils and long may it continue as I said thank you very much Simon okay well thank you everyone I think I said the date of our next meeting is 24th of October at 5.30 and all the meetings are going to be virtual unless anyone is quite keen to meet up but I think I think we can we can carry on with it being virtual for now anyway and see how it progresses did you want to come in Stephen Paul no other than just to echo the thanks both to you as members for turning up and your contributions and also to my fantastic collection of policy and planning colleagues for their work tonight thank you yes thanks everyone and this is me saying thank you and we'll we'll look forward to the next meeting on the 24th of October


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