Deputy Leader and Cabinet Member for Housing and Planning Decision Meeting - Monday 15 June 2026, 3:00pm - Cotswold District Council Webcasting

Deputy Leader and Cabinet Member for Housing and Planning Decision Meeting
Monday, 15th June 2026 at 3:00pm 

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  1. Councillor Juliet Layton
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1 Cabinet Member Introduction

Councillor Juliet Layton - 0:00:04
Good afternoon, I'm Juliet Leighton, I'm cabinet member and portfolio holder for planning and
housing and this is a decision -making meeting for the Siddington neighbourhood plan regulation
14. If you're looking online and you want to look at the papers, there are annexes A,
B, C, D and E. So plenty to look at. A lot of information in there. I'm going to start
off now asking the officers to introduce themselves. We've got several officers around the room
and one online. So if you could introduce yourselves, please.
Officer - 0:00:44
Hi, I'm Jo Corbett and I'm a senior planning policy officer.
Councillor Juliet Layton - 0:00:49
Good afternoon, I am Nicky McKenzie -Dest, I am the senior democratic services officer.
Councillor Juliet Layton - 0:00:58
We will go over to the author of the report, please.
Mark Harrison, I am the neighbourhood plans officer.
Councillor Juliet Layton - 0:01:07
That is excellent. I don't believe there are any declarations of interest, nobody has declared

2 Declarations of Interest

any interest in this, which sounds dreadful.
We are all interested, but you know what I mean.
So we are looking at ...

3 Officer Overview of the Report

I mean, the recommendation is that I agree
that the CDC response, which I believe is on Annex A,
I agree that for Regulation 14,
Siddington Neighbourhood Development Plan consultation,
we have no public speakers.
We've got no public speakers,
no public questions or people in here or no member questions on this. So I will go over
to Mark please to give us an update or a run through. Thank you.
Thanks. So Sillington House Council have been working very hard on their neighbourhood plan
and they have prepared a draught plan and undertaken a what's called a regulation 14 consultation
on that plan which is a consultation that they run and are responsible for. They've
And this will help them along with other comments they will have received from residents and
other stakeholders, help them revise their plan. And then once they've done that, they
will submit it to CDC as Reg 15. And then we will do a Reg 16 consultation on it. And
after that as the sort of examination process.
But just today we're just agreeing that on the comments
we're sending as CDC to Sydney to powers council
on on this version of the plan so that they can take
our comments into account when they revise this vision.
Our comments are in Annex A, if there's people who can access the online page.
So, we've, there's a bit of context in that document as well, and I've done HRA screening
and environmental screening on the plan as well before now. And they've, just to mention
that Sillington have been working very collaboratively with us. So I've been to some of their meetings
and they've come to Simon Sester and you know, we can go back and forth on things. But yeah,
Now we have a sort of official schedule of comments to agree today.
They have 11 policies in total that they are proposing.
The first of those is about a green gap to prevent the coalescence of Syrinsest and Sillington.
So, obviously we're not trying to change their objectives or the scope or approach of their
plan.
They've set that out and what they want to achieve.
We're just trying to help them through these comments achieve that and meet the basic conditions
so that the plan can move forward and ultimately be adopted.
So on that first policy, just sort of suggesting that they word it more positively, you know,
this isn't a gap to restrict development, just to protect the identity of Simon Seston
in Suddington as they are.
Policy two is about a settlement boundary.
So some comments there about,
perhaps it's a little restrictive.
And also we're not really giving them definitive answers,
just go away and think a bit further about this. So yeah, it's a very tight development
boundary they are proposing and where they could be opened up, whether there are some
appropriate infill sites they could consider that could perhaps be within the boundary.
So again it's not me telling them oh you know they should include this side or exclude that
side it's just can they go away and think about this more or if if they want to double
down on what what they've written just just provide the evidence that supports that essentially.
It's a policy on housing mix.
I wasn't sure whether that policy would be applicable in many cases, but good to have
it in case there ever was such a size of development that it was needed.
There was just a little query about what constitutes a local person where that policy applies.
Policy four is about general design.
So just some queries about specific wording and elements of design they're referring to.
and I think just streamlining that policy a little bit. Policy five, it's about the
old Talon school. So we screened this one with Historic England and they were happy we didn't
further assessment. But just to tighten up the policy a little bit about protecting the
heritage of that site if it was to be redeveloped. There's a local green space policy number
six. I'm putting forward three, two already in the local plan. So I think they just wanted
to reiterate that they support the inclusion of those and they were looking to add one
more with no problems with that. They've identified some important views. I recall having a meeting
with them about that one. So previously said, I think we're fairly content with that one
now. There's a policy on trees, hedgerows and woodland. It did duplicate the local plan
policy a little bit. So it'd be good if they could sort of localise it a bit for sitting
in anything other than referring to trees, hedgerows, woodland generally if they could
identify some locally in Siddington in that policy to highlight that would be good. Flooding
is a big issue in Siddington and they came to speak to some of our officers in Simon
about that. So again, and I think they do have this information, can they just in the
policy be a bit more locally specific about the flooding and then how they want development
to address flooding issues. Sustainable transport policy 10, they've got some good identified
routes, actually to better connect Siddington to sort of outskirts of Syrinsester and the
Tesco and that sort of thing. So it's not really, it's not saying that those routes
will definitely be built or come forward, but you know, they're advocating that they
do and if any development comes forward that could support those, that would be positive.
The last one was on community facilities, which again was generally fine. It's just
a little query about the term employment uses in our policy. So hopefully that can be tidied
up to. But overall it's a very good plan and we support them in progressing it. So after
that table on Annex A, so these comments have, they're not just from me, I've consulted other
offices within the planning team at CDC. I just thought in this case it would also be
useful to just copy their responses wholesale into this document rather than paraphrase
them. So we've got one from one of our conservation offices just a query about undesignated heritage
assets for them to address. Joe, I think this is from you actually, on flood risk. Thanks.
So yeah, just a few suggestions there to improve the wording. And then
one of our officers on sustainable transport has made a few wording suggestions as well,
just for better clarity or to ensure it meets those basic conditions like aligning with
national policy. So yeah, overall there's nothing controversial. Like I say, we've been working a
lot with Siddington on this and they've been working very hard. Just a few comments to help
them revise and progress their plan and hopefully they find those supportive and can just take
them away and start working on it. And obviously I'm here to help if they have any queries
Councillor Juliet Layton - 0:13:19
and further assistance on plan preparation. That's great. I've got one or two questions
Because you ran through those very efficiently, so I was following that through.
And I'd seen...
I've lost it now, isn't it?
I think it was the first one.
It was about whether you're defining the parish as a village or defining Siddington as the
village or the parish in one of them, I think.
It's to do with it coalescing with Sire and Sester and the Green Gap, I think.
Yeah, it might be worth differentiating between Siddington Parish and the built form.
But you've been discussing that with them because Siddington's a long village and then
there's the big gap and then there's another.
There are various elements of Siddington on there.
Yes, that comment was just, well, just to clarify the point that this plan is for Siddington
Parish as a whole. When they're talking about this policy on a settlement gap, we're talking
about the settlement of the village of Siddington. So I think I can't remember exactly what that
part of the policy said. But you've been discussing this with them, so they're understanding what

4 Confirmation of Comments

you're saying, yeah? Yeah, so it's just there's obviously some
part of the policy that I read and thought that's not clear whether it applies to the
whole of the parish or just to this part of the village where we're talking about the
gap. So just a little clarification in the policy just so that anyone reading it whether
a resident or our planners or a developer can all fully understand what and where it's talking about.
Councillor Juliet Layton - 0:15:36
Yeah that's really good and thank you. You talked about cycling, I think that's really important
that they do sort of define what they would like even though they can't actually perhaps
you know, actually create it at the moment, but we've got a local plan coming through
and so there'll be, you know, it's best to have it in there, what their desires are,
so it can be seen.
But most of the things are going to be fitting in with the local plan anyway, aren't they?
They're running alongside, like the design and the build and the housing mix and everything.
Yeah, I think it's all going to be quite…
local connexion perhaps, but when they talk about that, about the local people getting
housing, I think was one of the things you mentioned.
Yeah, I think it's all going to be quite compatible. On the sustainable transport,
that they have identified three routes. But they've done it in a good way. They've identified
sort of general routes such as one up to the Tesco and one towards the steadings. But it's
not really prescribed as to where exactly it has to go. So there's a bit of flexibility
there depending on landowners and developers and the actual physical construction of a path or route.
So yeah, that is a good policy. On the housing mix for
local people. So I spoke to them about this previously and they removed their sort of
criteria because it's Gloucestershire who have the process for how they prioritise people
for affordable housing or social housing. So we've taken that out. So that still rests
with Gloucestershire as it should. But in the depths of Gloucestershire's guidance,
a parish can identify what they mean by local in the sense of like adjoining parishes. So
they could say, you know, not only Siddington Parish, but some neighbouring ones could also
count as local people for the purposes of affordable housing in Siddington, if they
want to do, they don't have to, but I was just sort of pointing that out.
Councillor Juliet Layton - 0:18:37
Okay, I think the only other thing is that you mentioned flooding and I do know that
Siddington are really knowledgeable about all their flooding issues, where it's coming
from, what we can do about it or what they can do about it or what Thames Water can do
about it or whoever.
They are very knowledgeable about that.
But yeah, I'm very happy to agree these going forward, these comments.
I think it's a... Joe, did you want to say anything about flooding? You were mentioned.
Officer - 0:19:17
No, I was quite happy with the policy. Overall, it was just a few suggestions, just points of clarity really.
just to sort of help improve it rather than make any big changes to it.
Councillor Juliet Layton - 0:19:36
Well I'm very content with this and I'm very happy, as I said, I think you know
we've got some good comments there and the Siddington are on a bit of a mission
I think aren't they to try and get this through so we need to, but we don't need
to, I'm very happy to approve this I think it's a you know a good a very good
piece of work, thank you. And it will help them move to the next stage, which as you

7 Decision

said was 15 followed by 16 in that consultation in the future. So yeah, I think that brings
this to a close. Unless you've got anything else you want to add, Mark, or are you good?
Councillor Juliet Layton - 0:20:18
No, thanks very much. Okay. Well, thank you very much. I will close
the meeting then next that was the only item in the on the agenda and thank you