Minerals
The consultancy team, led by ENVIRON and including CAG Consultants
and The Centre for Sustainability (C4S), are responsible for carrying
out the sustainability appraisal of the Minerals Core Strategy
and Site Allocations Plan. These documents will guide mineral
planning in the County and identify potential sites for mineral
extraction and related activities.
Scoping
Sustainability appraisal involves testing the framework against
an agreed set of economic, social and environmental criteria throughout
the preparation process. Deciding what these criteria should be
is the first stage of sustainability appraisal, and is known as
'scoping'.
The scoping of sustainability issues for minerals planning in
Bedfordshire and Luton has been completed following a review of
a range of relevant strategy documents and other economic, social
and environmental info rmation within the region. In addition,
a scoping workshop involving a wide range of stakeholders was
held on 13 September 2005 and a number of completed scoping questionnaires
were returned to us. This information has been drawn together
in the Scoping Consultation Report, which can be downloaded by
clicking on the link below.
Scoping Consultation
Report
The info rmation from the scoping consultation report has been fed into the Minerals Development Framework Sustainability Appraisal Scoping Report , which can be downloaded by clicking on the link below.
Minerals Development Framework Sustainability Appraisal Scoping
Report
Appendices - Topic Papers
Issues and Options
Bedfordshire County Council recently consulted on the Minerals
Issues and Options paper and two supplementary papers. These follow
on from the initial issues scoping report and set out the key
policy issues for the preparation of the Core Strategy. In addition,
the documents also set out a portfolio of potential new sites
for mineral extraction which have been nominated by minerals operators
and landowners in the County. To view these documents, visit the
Council's website
.
Sustainability appraisal of the issues and options, and the sites put forward, is also being carried out. As part of that process, a series of consultation workshops were held during February and March 2006. A day-long workshop was held with key stakeholders and three public workshops were held in different parts of the County. A report on the findings from these workshops can be downloaded by clicking on the link below.
Issues
and Options Appraisal Consultation Report
The information gained from these workshops has
been used as part of the detailed issues and options appraisal
which has appraised the effects of the issues and options, the
effects of each site and the effect of the site clusters. This
is reported in the Issues and Options Sustainability Appraisal
Report below.
Issues
and Options Sustainability Appraisal Report
Appendix
1: Issue Appraisal Tables
Appendix
2: Site Appraisal Tables
Appendix
3: Cluster Appraisal Tables
Addendum: It has been bought to our attention
that the appraisal table for Site MD37 is missing from Appendix
2 above. Please click on the link below to view the table for
MD37
Site
Appraisal Table for MD37
Preferred Options
Bedfordshire County Council and Luton Borough Council
have now written the Preferred Options version of their Minerals
DPD Core Strategy and the Minerals DPD Site Allocations Document.
These documents follow on from the Issues and Options consultation
documents that were published in 2006. The Preferred Options documents
set out the preferred minerals strategy and also a portfolio of
potential new sites for mineral extraction. To view these documents,
visit the Council's website
.
A sustainability appraisal of the strategy and the sites has been undertaken by ENVIRON and is reported in the SA Reports which will be consulted on between 19th September and 31st October 2007.
Two separate SA Reports have been produced, one for
the Core Strategy and one for the Site Allocations Document. These
(along with their appendices) can be accessed through the links
below.
Core
Strategy SA Report
Core
Strategy SA Report Appendices
Site
Allocations Document SA Report
Site
Allocations Document SA Report Appendices
Consultation on New Site MD50
We are currently at the Preferred Options Stage
in the preparation of the Minerals Development Plan Documents.
During consultation on the Preferred Options Documents a new site
was proposed for mineral extraction at Clipstone (MD50). We are
now undertaking public consultation to gain information on the
site. This will enable us to assess its potential for inclusion
within the Minerals Development Plan Documents. Two documents
have been produced for Site MD50 and can be accessed below:
Site
MD50 Summary
Site
MD50 Assessment Table
We are also undertaking consultation on the Sustainability Appraisal for this site. The closing date for receiving responses during this consultation is Monday 2nd June 2008
For further information about the sustainability
appraisal process or to make any comments, please contact:
Tim Maiden
CAG Consultants
8 Broxholm Road
Newcastle upon Tyne NE6 5RL
tm@cagconsult.co.uk
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