Castle Point Borough Council held a special meeting on Wednesday 28 November to discuss the draft local plan and the various housing allocations across the Borough.
The plan, which would cover a period of twenty years, would have seen 1,399 new homes built on Canvey Island across nine sites, with 2,823 homes allocated for the rest of Castle Point across a further twenty sites.
Instead local Councillors, who were expected to approve the plan, rejected it with a vote of 16 to 15. The Council will now wait to hear from the Government as to if and when intervention will take place.
The Council was issued with a warning last November, urging it to complete its local plan by January this year. Having failed to comply with this timescale, they were requested to provide exceptional reasons as to why this was the case.
Central Government wrote to the bosses of the authority on 23 March 2018 stating that “intervention” would take place if completion of the local plan did not materialise.
Council leader Norman Smith, previously stated that failure to approve the draft plan would almost definitely lead to intervention.
At Smart Planning, we eagerly await the Government’s decision on intervention, and will continue to monitor the effect it has on planning within the Castle Point Borough.
30 November 2018