Core Strategy (PDF) - Lake District National Park

Lake District National Park Core Strategy including Proposals Map Adoption October 2010
communities and their long term sustainability, and contributes towards
reducing the need to travel.
3.5.2 Development must be of a scale that is sympathetic to the role of the
settlement and respect its appearance and physical capacity. When
assessing a development proposal, we will take into account spatial
variations, such as location, size and level of service provision. These
affect both the settlement’s current role and community aspirations for its
future role. We recognise the needs of our local communities and want
to enable settlements to evolve in order to adapt to rural challenges.
However, we will not permit development, or inappropriate settlement
expansion, that compromises the area’s special qualities or its
distinctiveness.
3.5.3 We will also consider the relationship between settlements in the
National Park and those towns close to our boundary. The scale of
development should provide appropriate local services and should meet
local needs. We will encourage key service provision where there is an
identified need. It must be appropriate to settlement size, and enhance
the settlement’s role and sustainability.
3.5.4 Key Service Centres in neighbouring authorities, such as Penrith and
Kendal, have traditionally provided vital services to National Park
communities. They generally provide a wide range of jobs, shops and
services and have relatively frequent public transport services.
3.5.5 In some cases, we will consider opportunities for development in
villages, where it meets an identified local need that we cannot
otherwise meet in a rural service centre due to lack of capacity.
Evidence from the Parish Wide Housing Need Surveys (Technical Paper
2) highlights those Parishes which have a large housing need. In these
circumstances, the village must demonstrate a strong relationship with a
rural service centre and have access to public transport.
3.5.6 There are two types of Cluster communities. There are those smaller
settlements/hamlets which are adjacent to a Rural service centre or
Village; this means that it should not be necessary to pass through
another smaller settlement/hamlet in order to access the Rural service
centre or Village in question, when taking the most direct or accessible
route, and Cluster communities which comprise of more than one
settlement/hamlet. These will only be recognised as such if each of the
individual but adjacent settlements provides one or more of the
requirements of the cluster as a whole (i.e. local service provision,
employment opportunities (within use classes B1, B2 or B8) or
sustainable transport connections). Each of the settlements/hamlets
must also be within walking and cycling distance of each other.
3.5.7 The Government has reclassified domestic gardens from previously
developed land to greenfield land. However, it is recognised that many
such sites can potentially make a modest but significant contribution
towards meeting the identified housing need in the locality. Domestic
gardens are often within the natural limits of a Cluster community and
they do not share the same characteristics or intrinsic value as the open
18