Sustainable Development
It is now a requirement that all development plans must be sustainable. Sustainable development is defined by the World Commission on Environment and Development as:
development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs
Yateley has been a considerable beneficiary of these new rules on Sustainable Development. When the District Council was preparing the Replacement Local Plan 1996-2006 Hart's planners took very seriously the obligations, derived from the Rio Summit in 1991, which had by then been incorporated by government as Planning Policy Guidance (PPGs). Paragraph 3.1.3 of the Draft Local Plan published in June 1996 stated:
Important environmental resources locally such as ecological diversity and historic heritage need to be protected, but global environmental effects such as that caused by air pollution from traffic must all be considered. Reducing travel by private car is therefore a particularly important aim, which can be encouraged by the provision of employment and services close to homes.
As a result of first carrying out a sustainability analysis of the District, Yateley was adjudged an 'unsustainable location' and was not given any large allocation of new residential development. However, resulting from Hart's policy of locating employment and services close to existing housing, amendments to the Local Plan allocated sites for commercial development at Clark's Farm and Sandhurst Road. Using the same national planning guidance as Hart, the Yateley Society's traffic expert successfully argued at the Clark's Farm planning inquiry that Yateley was an unsustainable location for large scale commercial development of the type being promoted by the would-be developers.
To learn more about sustainability issues in Yateley check Environment & Biodiversity and then Heritage & Conservation.
Traffic Management is also a primary sustainability issue.
To find out how development should be be assessed for impact on the environment read Environmental Assessment followed by Environmental Impact Assessements. Then read
Sustainability Appraisal to find out how plans and projects are assessed for sustainability.
To read SEERA's plans for new housing in the South East Region click SEERA future house-building rates and Hampshire County Council's housing option's for Hart.
If any parts of the Yateley Parish Plan are ever to be accepted by Hart as Supplementary Planning Guidance then our policies and recommendations must be sustainable and an appropriate assessment must be made.
Move on to: Sustainable Communities
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