Minerals and Waste Plans Advisory Service
County Councils and Unitary Authorities
We are now able to assist you in the production of minerals and waste local plans or review of your plans to ensure they are up to date and compliant with the current legislative requirements.
IPe has recruited three of the most highly regarded Minerals and Waste specialists to provide support on the preparation of Minerals and Waste local plans. In combination, Steve Pratt, Andrew Freeman and Andy Mead have over 80 years experience as planning Inspectors.
The IPe Minerals and Waste team has worked at the most senior examining level. Between them, they have examined more than 20 Minerals and Waste Local Plans under the 2004 Act, and have considerable expertise in all aspects of this casework type including advisory visits to planning authorities and contributing to numerous Planning Inspectorate training events on minerals and waste. They can provide a unique insight into how an Inspector might approach key issues on submission of your plan.
Support Options
We can provide bespoke support options to assist you in the formulation and preparation of your minerals and waste local plans.
Whether you are at an early stage of plan review or have reached an advanced point with your draft plan, we can undertake:
- Review of your current adopted policies to identify where you may need to update the policies to ensure compliance;
- Research how authorities that have tackled issues in similar circumstances to yours, identify why they succeeded or failed, and assess how these approaches (including successfully argued mitigating circumstances) might assist you in developing your policies. This could be plan wide or could focus on specific issues such as the duty to cooperate;
- Take stock of where you are in your plan review, facilitated through an officer workshop to explore key questions around barriers to progress and options to move forward your plan, including the pros and cons of each approach;
- Assess the adequacy of the evidence base against the emerging policies to ensure there is clear justification for your approach and if necessary, identify specific areas where further work may be needed;
- Explore likely issues you might need to address prior to examination based on your current draft plan. We can also talk directly to elected members about the tensions around the policy requirements and local considerations in plan making; and
- Undertake a Pre Submission health check of your plan, providing a written report on areas where we think you will be vulnerable at examination, with an option to follow this up in a meeting with an IPe advisor.
