South East Plan – who does what?
Under the new planning system, the government, local authorities and other partners – as well as the South East England Regional Assembly (SEERA) – all have important roles to play in the regional planning process.
South East England Regional Assembly
As a ‘designated regional chamber’, SEERA is the formal Regional Planning Body for the South East. This means that it is responsible for preparing, implementing, monitoring and reviewing a Regional Spatial Strategy (RSS) – the South East Plan.
However, SEERA’s responsibilities for preparing the RSS only extend as far as submitting a draft plan to government. At that point, the Government Office for the South East (GOSE) effectively takes over responsibility for the rest of the process on behalf of the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government (SoS).
In preparing its draft plan, SEERA also has a legal duty to request strategic planning advice from the region’s principal planning authorities (county and unitary councils) on sub-regional policy issues.
Who is SEERA?
SEERA has 112 members:
- two-thirds are councillors, nominated to represent their authority on the Assembly
- one third are representatives from business and voluntary groups.
Key decisions are taken at full Assembly meetings which involve all 112 members. The Assembly employs a small ‘secretariat’ to provide officer support. These meetings also consider reports and recommendations from SEERA’s Executive Committee and its Regional Planning Committee.
To find out more about SEERA and its role in regional planning, take a look at Regional Planning – SEERA website.
You can also find your local representatives using SEERA’s searchable database.
East Sussex County Council
County-level Structure Plans have been abolished under the new planning system and much of the sub-regional policy guidance now provided by the East Sussex and Brighton & Hove Structure Plan will be included in the new RSS – the South East Plan.
We play a very active role in the new regional planning system, advising and seeking to influence SEERA in a number of ways:
- Councillor Tony Reid represents the Council at the Assembly and is an active member of both its Regional Planning Committee and its Executive Committee.
- Council officers contribute to the work of a number of advisory groups that SEERA has set up to provide technical advice on a variety of topics.
- We have a statutory duty to advise SEERA on sub-regional planning issues. We are the lead authority for advising the Assembly on sub-regional strategy proposals for the Sussex Coast, and have advised SEERA on how its overall housing target for the next 20 years should be distributed within East Sussex.
- We have sought to raise awareness of the South East Plan and make it easier for others to engage with the process – including, for example, through these web pages and other consultation events.
- We submitted our own formal responses to consultations on the emerging South East Plan and continued to promote the county’s best interests through the Examination in Public.
- We have also worked closely with other county councils throughout the South East region to help formulate key proposals, commission major research (for example, on infrastructure requirements), survey residents’ views on critical issues and lobby Government.
SEERA has recently started a partial review of the South East Plan to address the accommodation needs of gypsies and travellers. We are currently working with all the other planning authorities in East Sussex (including Brighton & Hove) to provide the Assembly with joint advice on the need for additional pitches in our area.
Central government
The final version of the new South East Plan will be published by the SoS. Central government therefore determines the final strategic policy framework that will guide the preparation of all local planning documents being prepared across the region.
GOSE effectively took control of the regional planning process when SEERA submitted its draft plan to the SoS on 31 March 2006.
It is now waiting for the final report and recommendations of the independent panel that carried out the recent Examination in Public. This is expected at the end of July 2007, after which government will consult again in the autumn on its own proposed changes to the draft South East Plan.
The final version of the new RSS for the South East Plan should be published in spring 2008.
