In this month’s branch meeting Jason discussed the Newport Replacement Development Plan consultation that is now open.
Future Wales legislation identified this region as a growth area.
The new plan will be about how land in and around Newport should be developed over the next fifteen years.
The plan will:
- Decide where new development should happen.
- Decide which areas should be protected.
- Become the basis for how all planning applications in Newport will be decided.
The plan is in the second consultation stage now and focuses on the Growth and Spatial options
(Submissions Open: 25 January 2023 – 8 March 2023)
The growth and spatial options consider the scale of growth (housing and employment) and broad options for where that growth could be located (spatial options). Your feedback will help refine the growth and spatial options to best represent the communities that live in, work in, and visit Newport. This is the very early stages still of a process that is expected to be adopted in 2025 although we will know the candidate sites around November this year. Jason explained that many sites will be submitted that will in reality have little chance of progressing but in this stage may raise anxiety locally.
The plan needs to think about many issues- for example should the focus be on growth or employment or a mix of both and also the range of housing and what sort of housing are we providing to create balanced communities. Infrastructure would be a big issue for many and protecting villages or expanding them are typical discussions that often happen.
Jason went on to say that LDP’s are important-
This is about a plan and legislation that hopefully gets to appropriate growth and without this type of plan it could potentially be a free for all with developers dictating where houses are built. This consultation is an opportunity for residents to say how they would like to see Newport develop over the next 5 years.
A roadshow took place this week in the town hall and further information has been shared with members and is available along with the survey on the Newport Council web page
