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Strategic Development Plan

Published: 21/03/2018

At its meeting on 20 March, Flintshire County Council’s Cabinet will be asked to endorse a proposed response to a letter from the Cabinet Secretary for Energy, Planning and Rural Affairs. The Cabinet Secretary has written to all local authorities in North Wales inviting them for their views on the preparation of a Strategic Development Plan (SDP) for the region. An SDP is a plan which would allow larger than local issues such as housing, employment and infrastructure to be considered in an integrated and comprehensive way across the region. Such a plan has the potential to reduce complexity and repetition currently contained in Local Development Plans (LDP) and make more effective use of resources. Flintshire County Council’s Cabinet Member for Planning and Public Protection, Councillor Chris Bithell, said: “Flintshire can certainly see value in producing an SDP for the region, but as a Council we do have one significant concern with the proposal. There is no mention in the Cabinet Secretary’s letter about who would produce such a plan and our priority must be the production and adoption of Flintshire’s LDP. We cannot afford to divert our planning officers, who are fully committed to our LDP, away from that task in order to work on a regional SDP.”