I work as an Assistant Planner within the Policy & Strategy Team, one of my responsibilities is to increase community involvement in the planning process, I am also a member of the Community Involvement Strategy Group (CISG).
The Policy & Strategy Team is responsible for formulationg the Local Development Framework (LDF). The LDF is the new system of planning introduced by the government. In the future the LDF will replace Croydon's Unitary Development Plan (UDP) as the main collection of planning policy documents within the council. The LDF is really just a folder of plans and planning documents which are collectively known as Local Development Documents (LDDs) and which comprise two main types of documents:
- Development Plan Documents (DPDs)
- Supplementary Planning Documents (SPDs)
DPDs are statutory documents that the council must prepare and they provide the basis for all planning, development and conservation decisions in this area. There are several types of DPDs, including a Core Strategy, Site Allocations, Suite of Development Control Policies, Area Action Plans (AAPs) and the Statement of Community Involvement (SCI). Supplementary Planning Documents are intended to expand upon policy or provide further detail to policies in Development Plan Documents, but do not have development plan status. These documents can demonstrate through illustrations, text and practical examples how policies can be taken forward. The Government advises that Supplementary Planning Documents may be taken into consideration as a material consideration, the weight accorded to it being increased if it has been the subject of a Council Resolution.
The Policy & Strategy team are extremely keen to increase consultation on all Local Development Documents, as such it is hoped by utilising Talk 2 Croydon we can increase resident participation.
