Fitting with policy

The West Midlands Checklist assists in the delivery of the Regional Spatial Strategy for the West Midlands, the Regional Sustainable Development Framework and the Regional Housing Strategy by identifying a range of sustainability issues covered, and enabling users to assess to what extent a design proposal will deliver on each issue.

On behalf of the West Midlands Regional Assembly, Sustainability West Midlands has produced the Regional Sustainable Development Framework, a tool to help policy-makers incorporate sustainability principles into strategies, plans and projects. The Framework sets out sustainable development objectives for the West Midlands and a process by which policy-makers can incorporate these objectives into their work. In this way all policy areas will be working towards a sustainable future for the West Midlands. The Framework was reviewed in the light of national and regional policy developments, including the UK Government's 2005 Sustainable Development Strategy, "Securing the Future", and relaunched in July 2006.

As far as possible, the Checklist is based on these existing policies and objectives in the West Midlands and other useful tools and measures to provide a “one stop shop”.

The Checklist does not negate the need for other statutory appraisals (such as EIA) to be provided. However an EIA can be used to answer some questions within the Checklist.

Whilst the Checklist has been designed to reflect RSS policy (which legislatively will form part of local planning policy), it can be tailored to reflect local policy and the findings of SEA/SA for local plans.