The Town and Country Planning (Development Plan) (Amendment) Regulations 1997

Explanatory Note

(This note is not part of the Regulations)

These regulations amend the Town and Country Planning (Development Plan) Regulations 1991. The 1991 Regulations make provision for the form and content of structure plans, local plans, minerals local plans, waste local plans and unitary development plans made under the Town and Country Planning Act 1990 and the procedure for the making, alteration and replacement of such plans. They also set out rules for resolving conflict between and within such plans.

The main changes to the 1991 Regulations are as follows:

(a) to require local planning authorities to have regard to any future national waste strategy in formulating development plans (regulations 3 and 4). The national waste strategy has not yet been prepared but a White Paper on a strategy for sustainable waste management in England and Wales “Making Waste Work” was presented to Parliament by the Secretary of State for the Environment and the Secretary of State for Wales in December 1995 (Cm 3040 London: HMSO);

(b) to require a local planning authority, including a new National Park Authority as the sole local planning authority for the Park area, to consult any local authority or urban development corporation for an area covered by the development plan proposals (regulation 5);

(c) to require a local planning authority, in giving notice of its intended adoption of its plan proposals without modifications or further modifications, or of its intended modifications to its plan proposals, to serve notice not just on anyone who has made an objection or representation, but also on any other person who the authority considers should be given notice (regulations 6(a) and 7(a));

(d) to replace the prescribed forms (regulation 9 and the Schedule).

Paragraph 233(1) of Schedule 22 to the Environment Act 1995 provides, inter alia, that in any subordinate legislation for any reference to the National Rivers Authority there shall be substituted a reference to the Environment Agency.