North Yorkshire Council
Selby and Ainsty Area Committee
Minutes of the meeting held on Friday, 17 January 2025 commencing at 1.00pm.
Councillor Melanie Davis in the Chair and Councillors Karl Arthur, Mark Crane, Tim Grogan, Andrew Lee (remote), John McCartney, Bob Packham, Kirsty Poskitt, Jack Proud, Steve Shaw-Wright, Arnold Warneken.
Officers present: Steve Wilson, Planning Policy & Place Manager; Linda Marfitt, Head of Planning Policy & Place; Glenn Sharpe, Senior Solicitor (Planning); Dawn Drury, Democratic Services Officer; and David Smith, Senior Democratic Services Officer.
Apologies: Councillors John Cattanach, Stephanie Duckett, Mike Jordan, Andrew Lee, Cliff Lunn and Andy Paraskos.
In attendance: Councillors Carl Les OBE, Kevin Foster and George Jabbour; and Tom Jenkinson, Communities Locality Lead.
Copies of all documents considered are in the Minute Book
117 Apologies for Absence
Apologies were received from Councillors John Cattanach, Stephanie Duckett, Mike Jordan, Andrew Lee, Cliff Lunn and Andy Paraskos.
118 Declarations of Interest
None.
119 Public Participation
Three public statements were received before the deadline of Tuesday 14 January 2025.
1) An individual submitted a public statement but was unable to attend the meeting and so they will receive a response in writing.
2) Councillor Peter Baumann of Sherburn In Elmet Town Council made the following statement.
Thank you, Chair & Councillors.
I am speaking to you today as Chair of Sherburn Town Council to express our concerns about the recommendation to cease work on the Selby Local Plan.
The Selby Local Plan has had significant time, effort, and financial investment. Halting it now risks devaluing these efforts and would undermine the hard work of local councils, community groups and residents who have invested in shaping their communities’ futures. It risks eroding public confidence in the planning process, too — residents have engaged in consultations, provided feedback, and invested time believing their voices would shape the Local Plan. Abandoning the Plan has the potential to send a message that their input holds little value, discouraging future participation in planning processes.
It may also lead to parish and town councils, including ours, having to cease work on their own Neighbourhood Development Plans and possibly repay grant funding as a result of the failure to produce a Plan. In Sherburn alone, we have spent over £5,000 on our NDP so far and have held several consultations with the community, in good faith that it would align with the Selby Local Plan.
Selby’s Local Plan has taken over 5 years to get to this stage, but it is now at the point where it is sufficiently advanced that both developers and the planning department recognise its weight. To scrap it risks creating a vacuum in the planning system, potentially for several years whilst the North Yorkshire Local Plan is progressed, leaving residents and councils without a clear framework for managing development. If developers get wind that this Committee and North Yorkshire Council are set to abandon it, they will exploit that uncertainty. It will become incredibly difficult to argue that any weight should be afforded to the policies and the land allocations within. Speculative applications will become harder to resist, undermining the ability to deliver strategic, sustainable and community-led growth.
Sherburn knows from experience the damage this can cause, placing a severe strain on infrastructure, from schools to healthcare to transport. Without a clear strategic plan, there is no guarantee that future developments will come with the infrastructure improvements we so desperately need.
Finally, while I recognise the challenges imposed by the revised NPPF in terms of housing allocation and 5-year supply, the worst possible outcome would be to have no plan in place—emerging or otherwise. Without a Plan, you risk leaving communities vulnerable to ad-hoc, uncoordinated development, undermining efforts to deliver sustainable growth and the associated essential infrastructure. A clear framework, even one still in progress, is far better than none at all.
For these reasons, we urge the Committee to reject the recommendation to halt progress on the Selby Local Plan. Instead, we ask that you complete and adopt it, ensuring a strategic framework is in place to guide development and protect our communities until the North Yorkshire Local Plan is ready.
An Officer response was provided which raised the following points.
· The Council has worked and will continue to work with a range of evidence and stakeholders as the NYC Local Plan progresses.
· If the Selby Local Plan is halted, the current policies will hold no weight, but the evidence base may still be given appropriate weight when making decisions about specific sites. The evidence base will be valuable, as it will be rolled into the NYC Local Plan.
· The NYC Local Plan is progressing and a public consultation on the issues and options will take place soon.
· Neighbourhood Plans may need additional work to ensure that they are consistent with the existing Local Plan, however this does not mean that they must be stopped.
· If work on the Selby Local Plan is not ceased, there still won’t be a 5-year supply.
3) Councillor Patrick Tunney of Tadcaster Town Council made the following statement.
Thank you Chair.
I think we all acknowledge and understand what’s happened with the NPPF and the reasons behind this Council dropping its Local Plan. I am a resident of Tadcaster, and I have been for 30 years, and what has really concerned me is that there has been a behind the scenes, closed doors, conversation taking place with the stakeholders in Tadcaster with no involvement of the constituents of the community.
This conversation, dialogue or discussion is proposed to continue during the development of the now North Yorkshire Plan. As a resident, I feel that the openness and ability for the community to understand what is happening behind the scenes needs to be clearer.
There is sympathy for the objectives of the discussions, but there are elements in the Tadcaster section of the plan that do no match with the objectives of the majority of the residents in the town. The development of the central car park and the proposal for an underground car park are complete nogoers. The two things cannot go together, and as I understand it, the continuing dialogue is going to be to allow for the two things to go ahead. They are incompatible.
An Officer response was provided which raised the following points:
· The Council works with a wide range of stakeholders, landowners, developers, and site-promoters whilst producing local plans.
· Individual schemes will be investigated as and when they arise.
120 Recommendation on the Future of the Selby Local Plan
Considered
A report of the Corporate Director of Community Development updating and consulting the Committee on the recommendation to cease work on the preparation of the Selby Local Plan.
Steve Wilson and Linda Marfitt introduced the report, summarising the following key points.
- It was highlighted that the report was seeking comments and recommendations from the Development Plan and Selby and Ainsty Area Committees. The Executive would consider those comments and recommendations on 4 February 2025, before making a final recommendation to Full Council on 26 February 2025. The Development Plan Committee plays an overarching, strategic, role, and the Area Committee takes a more local approach.
- That the new National Planning and Policy Framework (NPPF) reinstates the requirement for local planning authorities to maintain a 5-year housing land supply and therefore the current 4-year housing land supply that can be demonstrated is unsatisfactory.
- There are increased housing requirements following the publication of the NPPF which means that the current iteration of the Selby Local Plan has a shortfall of between 2000 and 3000 dwellings.
- The Government provided guidance to the Planning Inspectorate in July 2024 to make it clear that Inspectors should no longer devote significant time to resolving outstanding matters to ensure submitted local plans are ‘sound’, and therefore the option to progress to submission without substantial further work would delay the Plan further.
- There are uncertainties over the evidence base of the Selby Local Plan and therefore certain matters require updates and new consultations. This would be a substantial task.
- That the policies and evidence base of the Plan would be used in the preparation of the North Yorkshire Local Plan where appropriate.
- That if a formal decision is taken to halt the plan, the Council can continue to apply some weight to the most recent evidence base when making decisions on planning applications.
- That the Selby Local Plan is not at a stage where it can benefit from the NPPFs transitional arrangements.
Following this, a discussion took place, the key points of which can be seen below.
- It was clarified that if a decision is taken to cease work on the Selby Local Plan, appropriate weight can be given to some of the evidence base when specific sites are in question. One of the recommendations is that the Council uses sites identified within the draft Selby Local Plan as the starting point for discussions. It was also recognised that the current evidence base would be deemed inadequate if the Selby Local Plan was submitted.
- Members were informed that communities would be engaged with regarding the identification of sites during the development of the NYC Local Plan and that work with NYC regeneration will go ahead to take advantage of arising opportunities. Members reminded Officers to engage with Parish and Town Councils.
- Members raised that the Selby Local Plan was delayed due to Local Government Reorganisation.
- It was highlighted that if the Selby Local Plan is continued, there would be a significant cost – some suggested that these resources would be better spent on developing the NYC Local Plan.
- It was noted that whilst Sherburn In Elmet may not have received sufficient allocations based on recent growth, some infrastructure had been developed. Members reinforced the need for increasing housing supply but providing adequate infrastructure.
- Members asked that liaison between development management and policy be improved to ensure that applications not in the Local Plan are given the correct steer.
- There were concerns that some areas in North Yorkshire would be allocated for more housing than others. Officers informed Members that decisions on allocations had not yet been made but that consultations would take place at the appropriate time.
- Officers reported that they are seeking clarification from the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government on whether the 5-year housing land supply figure for the NYC Local Plan is calculated as one figure for the County, or separate figures for each of the current planning areas.
The Committee reinforced the view that NYC should work to deliver appropriate sites and infrastructure, and highlighted that there should be liaison between development management and policy.
A vote was taken on each of the recommendations and it was
Resolved
That the Selby and Ainsty Area Committee supports the recommendation that the Executive recommend to Full Council that:
i) Work on the emerging Selby Local Plan is ceased.
(Voting record: 7 votes for, 0 against and 2 abstentions)
ii) The Council works proactively to bring forward sites within the Selby area to seek to maintain land supply, using those sites identified within the draft Selby Local Plan as the starting point for discussions with site promoters/developers.
(Voting record: 7 votes for, 0 against and 2 abstentions)
iii) The Council continues to vigorously promote the regeneration of Tadcaster, working with key stakeholders to support the delivery of sites and to bring derelict buildings back into use and work to ensure that evidence in respect of delivery is secured as we move through the preparation of the North Yorkshire Local Plan.
(Voting record: 8 votes for, 0 against and 1 abstention)
121 Any Other Items
There were none.
122 Date of next meeting
10am Friday, 25 April 2025.
The meeting concluded at 2.11pm.