Issue - meetings

Report of the Chief Planning Officer to follow

Further to Minute No. 49 (2) of 5 March 2024 the Committee considered the report of the Chief Planning Officer on the potential inclusion, within the Local Plan, of the need to provide recycling/community recycling facilities in development proposals.

The report indicated that National Planning Policy Guidance (NPPF) did not provide guidance on the need for community recycling facilities, but did allow Local Authorities to address non-strategic issues that arose in their area through the Development Plan process; that the Development Plan for Sefton included the Sefton Local Plan (2017) and the Merseyside and Halton joint Waste Local Plan (2013); that the Local Plan did not include any requirement for community recycling facilities in new development, but policy WM9 “Sustainable Waste Management Design and Layout for New development” included in the Local Plan did set out that the design and layout of new development must, provide for the “facilitation of collection and storage of waste, including separated recyclable materials”.

The report also detailed the potential for a new Local Plan policy and how this could be achieved, but that in the best-case scenario, a new Local Plan would be unlikely to be adopted for at least three to four years.

The report also detailed issues to be consider for including separate recycling schemes with development; and referred to previous recycling facilities that had been secured on commercial development sites, for example, on car parks of large supermarkets and retail parks; and consideration given to communal recycling facilities within both existing and new residential developments. Problems associated with this were that doorstep collections were already provided by Sefton, which each household could use; and the challenging issue of where the recycling facilities would be sited as the facility both needed to be readily accessible for anyone to use but not situated immediately next to someone’s home. When Operational In-House Services trialled communal bins in 2021 there was significant objection to them being cited near to peoples’ homes.

The report concluded that notwithstanding the issues referred to, the Council would continue to apply existing policies that required that space was included within new premises and homes for the safe and easy storage of recycling material ready for collection, and layouts of new development to allow for the collection of waste and recycling; and that it was not considered justifiable to have a Local Plan policy requiring communal recycling facilities to be provided within new developments. However, it was something that could be reviewed when the next Local Plan /Waste Local Plan was commenced.

Members of the Committee commented on the following issue:

·       supporting evidence in the form of quantitative data

RESOLVED:

That it is not currently considered appropriate for the inclusion of a new policy for communal recycling facilities within major new commercial and housing developments in the next Local Plan and/or Waste Local Plan.