Minimum standards
Why doesn’t the Checklist set minimum standards?
The checklist does not produce new policy. It is designed to help implement existing regional, local and national planning policy. Therefore minimum standards have to be set in local, regional or national policy. Where there is site specific national or regional policy, the minimum standard is shown in the Checklist, but this is usually left to local planning authorities. It is not currently possible to show the different minimum standards of each local planning authority in the region, although this may be incorporated in future versions of the Checklist.
What if the local authority does not have a minimum standard for some of the questions?
This is possible and one of the reasons for producing the Checklist is to help local authorities to “scope” their sustainable development planning policy. The checklist enables authorities to see where they currently have policy gaps which they may need/wish to fill.
Whilst the developer is not compelled to address issues where minimum standards do not exist, the provision of good and best practice standards enables them to see how they might incorporate the issue into their design.
What if the development does not meet minimum standards for a particular question?
The Developer has the opportunity to state that the development does not meet the minimum standard in any question. This facility has been deliberately included as it is possible that on some sites it will simply not be possible to deliver on a particular issue. Where this is the case, rather than ignore or forget the issue, the Checklist is designed to ensure that both the Developer and Local Planning Authority agree that it is not achievable in this application and to arrange mitigation where this is appropriate.