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6. Implementation and Monitoring

The Spatial Strategy and the Spatial Policies will be implemented through the further development of the Local Development Framework, by Council working with its partners, and through the planned investment of private and public resources.

Local Development Framework
The Core Strategy sets out the broad direction for the Local Development Framework. The Borough Council will subsequently prepare a range of other Development Plan Documents (DPDs) and Supplementary Planning Documents to take the Strategy forward.

The Core Strategy will be implemented through the following elements of the Local Development Framework:

• Development Policies DPD
• Site Allocations DPD and Adopted Proposal Maps
• Area Action Plans
• Supplementary Planning Documents

Working in Partnership
The Borough Council needs the help of public and private partners to deliver all the housing, facilities and infrastructure required to create sustainable communities. The Local Development Framework will provide a logical and considered plan for development, investment, services and infrastructure for the Borough of Colchester up to 2021. The Borough Council will work with a number of partners, including the following, to implement the Core Strategy and LDF (not exclusive):

Table 6a – Partners

Housing Delivery
Core Policy H1: Housing Delivery sets out the minimum housing provision in order to comply with the East of England Plan (EEP). The EEP states that the Borough should aim to exceed the minimum requirement (830 per year) if housing can be delivered without breaching environmental limits and infrastructure constraints. The Council will therefore plan, monitor and manage housing delivery to ensure it exceeds the minimum provision. Since 2001, Colchester has successfully delivered housing well above the rate required by the EEP, as shown in the table below.

Table 6b – Housing Completions 2001 - 2008

Year	House Completions
2001 – 2002	568
2002 – 2003	984
2003 – 2004	916
2004 – 2005	1281
2005 – 2006	901
2006 – 2007	1250
2007 – 2008	1243

PPS3: Housing requires the Local Planning Authority to set out a housing implementation strategy to manage the delivery of housing. The Core Strategy provides the broad context for managing housing delivery in accordance with PPS3. A range of scenarios and options have been considered as part of the Sustainability Appraisal and sufficient land has been identified to comfortably deliver the minimum housing provision.

The Housing Land Availability Assessment identified capacity within established urban areas and previously developed land to accommodate 17,940 to 19,460 homes during the 2001 to 2021 period. Recent planning permissions and development trends indicate this is quite a conservative estimate.  In light of the revisions to the East of England Plan and PPS3, the Council considered it necessary to make a more conservative interpretation of the HLAA, which resulted in a capacity for 15,314 new homes in Colchester between 2001 and 2021 (see Housing Topic Paper).

The Core Strategy and LDF therefore seek to identify additional provision of around 3,500 homes to ensure that over 18,760 homes can be confidently delivered between 2001 and 2023. The Core Strategy identifies broad areas of greenfield land with ample capacity for 3000 additional homes, and also identifies broad areas of previously developed land to accommodate further development (e.g. North Station Regeneration Area). It is possible that the housing provision up to 2023 could be delivered without the broad areas of greenfield land, however this land provides both flexibility to housing delivery and an opportunity to deliver sustainable new neighbourhoods that will contribute towards strategic facilities, infrastructure and zero carbon homes. The focus of delivery will remain on the regeneration of brownfield sites. The timing of the release for development of broad areas of greenfield land will be managed through monitoring of housing delivery and it will be released for development before 2016 if required to support housing delivery. Where necessary, the Council will seek to manage the release of land within the Growth Area Urban Extensions through planning obligations or conditions applied to any grant of planning permission. 

PPS 3 requires local planning authorities to provide a 5 year supply of specific deliverable sites, a 6-10 year supply of specific developable sites, and broad locations for an 11-15 years supply of land.  At present there are extant planning permissions for over 8000 homes, and existing allocations with capacity for over 1200 new homes. This indicates that there is a sufficient supply of deliverable and developable sites in Colchester already to accommodate a 10 year supply of housing (see Housing Topic Paper). Emerging figures from the Strategic Housing Land Availability Assessment, which has taken into account the Core Strategy housing provision and recent development trends, estimates that projected housing delivery between 2001 and 2023 is likely to be approximately 21,500. The Council is therefore confident that housing delivery in the Borough will exceed the minimum housing provision outlined in Policy H1, in accordance with the East of England Plan.

The Site Allocations DPD (to be adopted in 2010) will allocate the additional land required to deliver the housing provision in accordance with the Core Strategy, including greenfield land with capacity for approximately 3000 new homes. In addition to the Site Allocations DPD, the delivery of housing in regeneration areas and growth areas will be facilitated through Area Action Plans, SPDs, masterplans and development briefs, the appropriate method being determined by the Council. The Council monitors annual housing delivery, and in the unlikely event that housing delivery falls significantly short of the EEP’s minimum requirements, the Council will act to release identified greenfield land within the Growth Areas and if necessary revise the LDF accordingly.

Employment Delivery

Providing jobs for Colchester’s growing community is a central objective of the Core Strategy. The East of England Plan set a target of approximately 14,200 jobs, although many jobs have already been created since 2001. The Haven Gateway Employment Study considered that 14,200 jobs could be provided in Colchester in the following employment sectors:

Table 6c – Projected Employment Change 2006 - 2021

Employment Sector	Employment change needed to achieve EEP target
Agriculture	- 500
Manufacturing	- 1500
Electricity gas and water	- 200
Construction	+ 500
Distribution	+ 500
Retail	+ 2400
Hotels and catering	+ 2300
Transport and communication	+ 500
Banking, finance and other business services	+ 3500

The Council cannot deliver this employment directly, but it can protect existing employment, stimulate new employment developments, and accommodate new developments at the most suitable locations. 

The Council commissioned studies of projected growth in retail, business and employment, and used this evidence to plan and facilitate future economic development and employment delivery in Colchester.  During the 2006 to 2021 period, Colchester will need to accommodate the following development:

• 67,000sqm (net) of retail floor space
• 106,000sqm (gross) of office floor space (Use Class B1)
• 45,000sqm (gross) of other business floor space (excluding B1)
• 270-490 hotel bed spaces by 2011 

Promoting regeneration, higher densities and mixed use developments in existing Centres will build additional capacity to accommodate employment and economic growth at sustainable locations. This process will be facilitated through the preparation of Area Action Plans, SPDs and development briefs. The regeneration of St Botolphs is expected to deliver over 35,000sqm of net retail floor space, and an SPD is being prepared for the North Station Regeneration Area to facilitate the delivery of 40,000sqm of office and business floor space.

The Council will plan, monitor and manage the delivery of the main Town Centre land uses, including retail, offices, cultural and entertainment uses and amend the LDF as necessary to ensure that the majority of this development is delivered in the Town Centre and other accessible locations. If the Council determines that the necessary retail and office development cannot be delivered in the Town Centre during the plan period, than this development can be accommodated in District Centres or Strategic Employment Zones, in accordance with the sequential approach (see Policy CE2 & PPS6).  

The Strategic Employment Zones offer an ample supply of deliverable land for employment developments, particularly warehousing and industry. The Borough Council has already supported outline proposals for over 110,000sqm of B1 floor space within the Strategic Employment Zones. In addition to these B1 commitments, over 35ha of land is currently available for industry (B2) and warehousing (B8) developments, as follows:

• Cuckoo Farm, North Colchester - 19.8ha

• Tollgate, Stanway – 11.37ha
• London Road, Stanway – 4.75ha

To improve the quality of these SEZ sites, improvements will be made to transport infrastructure to enhance access to the strategic road network and the Town Centre. 

Delivering Infrastructure and Facilities
Successful implementation of the Core Strategy and the LDF relies on effective co-ordination between public and private partners to enable the provision of infrastructure and facilities.  New development creates a need to provide new infrastructure and facilities, and to mitigate the effect of development on the surrounding area.  Financial contributions will be sought from developers to combine with public funding to deliver the necessary facilities in infrastructure.

The Council will seek to employ standard charges where appropriate to ensure that new development makes a reasonable contribution to the provision of facilities and infrastructure. The Council will prepare further guidance regarding standard charges and development contributions to support the implementation of the LDF.

Key infrastructure and facilities have been identified in Table 6d as important elements of the spatial strategy for Colchester.

Table 6d – Key Facilities and Infrastructure

Monitoring
Continual plan review is a fundamental element of the new planning system. It is important to check that the plan is being implemented correctly, ensure that outcomes match objectives, and to change the plan if they are not.  The new planning system provides for separation of components of the LDF to allow each part to be reviewed and amended individually which enables a more rapid and responsive system.  The Borough Council will undertake annual monitoring of the implementation of the Core Strategy, and of other parts of the LDF as they are developed, and will amend documents as required.

Appendix C identifies indicators that will be used to monitor the implementation of the Core Policies by the responsible authorities. The indicators provide a means of measuring how well the Borough Council and its partners have performed in achieving the objectives of the Core Strategy. These indicators are also consistent with those employed in the Sustainability Appraisal and the Annual Monitoring Report.

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