Panel Report - South West Regional Assembly

The Spatial Strategy
have included suitable policy wording in our recommendation and supporting text (drawing
on Policies D-H) and supporting text need say little other than that a key aspect of strategy
in support of protecting the Region’s environment is to ensure that new development is
served by appropriate infrastructure, is well designed and planned, is constructed sustainably
and makes optimum use of previously developed land.
3.13 Lastly, the Panel considers it necessary to indicate in the Core Spatial Strategy Statement
that the draft RSS incorporates the Regional Transport Strategy. This is the subject of the
next main issue and our overall recommendations on core strategy therefore follow after
that.
The broad transport implications of the strategy
3.14 The Panel acknowledges that the inclusion of transport as a major element of strategy would
inherently introduce tension with an overall aim of draft RSS (expressed in the third bullet
point of Policy SD4, for example) to reduce the need to travel. Nonetheless, draft RSS is
open to justifiable criticism that the Spatial Strategy Statement in paragraph 3.1.3 does not
refer to travel and transport at all, whether in resolving that conflict (for example through the
promotion of wider “connectivity” measures, such as increased use of information
technology systems) or in providing a suitable policy framework for the inevitable
movement of people and goods. Such reference is, in the Panel’s view, necessary not just to
recognise that the Regional Transport Strategy is an integral part of draft RSS, but also to
acknowledge the complementary relationships with other draft RSS policies such as those
that may reduce pressures for rural dispersal and consequent increased travel demands
through the promotion of high quality urban environments. The bullet points following
draft RSS paragraph 3.9.1 are insufficient in these respects, because they deal only with
investment priorities and do not distinguish between spatial planning priorities in parts of
the Region where differences in strategic emphasis apply. Thus, inter-regional connectivity
may be more important in areas where the strategy emphasis is to stimulate the economy,
while measures to tackle urban congestion (or making places function more efficiently)
might be more important where the emphasis is on realising potential. Requirements for
investment in transport are however, in themselves, essentially a matter for the Regional
Transport Strategy. The Panel therefore deals with those matters more fully in Chapter 5 of
this Report.
3.15 For these reasons, the Panel considers that the first three bullet points following paragraph
3.9.1 (which, unlike the others and the text in paragraph 3.9.1 itself, are concerned with
outcomes rather than process) should be translated into textual and policy reference to
connectivity and functional efficiency in the part of draft RSS dealing with the Core Spatial
Strategy Statement itself. This requires minor consequential modification of paragraph
3.2.4, which summarises the content of paragraph 3.9.1 and should refer to process only
(with outcomes in our recommended Policy SS). We recommend accordingly.
Recommendation 3.1
• Re-title Section 3 of the draft RSS to refer to “Spatial Strategy Statement and Guidance for the
Scale and Location of Development” and paragraph 3.1 to refer to “The Core Spatial Strategy
Statement”.
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