Spatial strategy

Vision

At a national level, the NPPF is clear that the purpose of the planning system is to contribute to the achievement of sustainable development. It requires that economic, social and environmental objectives are pursued at the same time through Local Plans that provide a positive vision for the future of their area, and with planning policies that play an active role in guiding development towards sustainable solutions. This means delivering the housing and employment growth that places need in order to function, in ways which also support healthy communities, protect our environment and lower carbon emissions. As part of this, Local Plans need to set out an overall strategy for the pattern and scale of development in their area. This is most commonly termed the 'Spatial Strategy'.

The Spatial Strategy offers the best opportunity at a high level to set out how Leeds will pursue the UN 17 Goals for Sustainable Development; address social progress, economic well-being and environmental protection as set out in para 7 of the NPPF.

At the local level, the Best City Ambition sets the overall vision for the future of Leeds. The spatial strategy of the Local Plan needs to align with this vision for Leeds, ensuring that growth and development across the city is managed to help support the delivery of this overall ambition. This means that the spatial strategy of LLP 2040 will need to focus on:

1. Health and wellbeing: enabling better and more equal access to essential health and learning services and communities in which residents feel more secure, with safe connections to local parks or green space, and quality homes that support good health, wellbeing and educational outcomes.
   
2. Inclusive growth: supporting Leeds as an outward looking global city and ensuring that economic growth is supported, with its benefits distributed fairly across the city with opportunities for all, recognising that place matters and positive identity, culture, heritage and pride in our communities are vital assets.
3. Zero carbon: creating vibrant places where residents have close access to services and amenities, which encourages people to be physically active and reduces reliance on the private car and where buildings are net zero.

Current issues

Leeds is the second largest City outside of London and its population is forecast to grow by around 37,000 people between 2022 and 2040.  Leeds has a responsibility as one of England's largest provincial cities and as the centre of the Leeds City Region to grow and perform well economically. This is set in the context of a national housing crisis where it is recognised that England needs to build 300,000 homes per year, and our cities need to take the responsibility of their proportion of this growth.

• How would you accommodate this growth?
• Do you think it should all be on brownfield land?  If so, is there enough brownfield land to go round? Are the incentives there to build it? Is the brownfield land in the right places to meet local needs?
• Should we protect the Green Belt at all costs?  What circumstances would warrant planned release of Green Belt land for development?
• Just how should Leeds expand?  How should this fit with public transport and infrastructure provision?  How can all of this be funded?

These are the questions which we must pose ourselves and have a discussion about through the Leeds Local Plan 2040.  Often growth (and housing growth in particular) is viewed as a problem, but it is a means of investment, creates opportunities to regenerate and reshape places and fundamentally provides a home for people who currently don't have one.  

The Spatial Strategy is currently set out through Spatial Policies 1-13 of the Core Strategy. Spatial Policy 1 sets out the approach to the location of development which is currently implemented through the Local Plan. It is based on a Settlement Hierarchy, and seeks to direct the largest amounts of development to the City Centre, Main Urban Area and Major Settlements, taking advantage of existing services, high levels of accessibility, priorities for urban regeneration and an appropriate balance of brownfield and greenfield land.

For the purposes of distributing housing development, Leeds is also currently divided into 11 'Housing Market Characteristic Areas' (HMCAs), which reflect functional housing submarkets. These had benefits in breaking down the large Metropolitan District of Leeds, into smaller more manageable areas, for the purposes of making site allocations, and enabling the relative benefits of sites within an area to be compared. However, they don't necessarily fully reflect how people understand their neighbourhood or area and therefore need to be reviewed   

Through the Site Allocations Plan, more opportunities were found to be available in sustainable locations within the City Centre and Inner Areas on brownfield land than was anticipated when the housing needs were indicatively distributed to HMCA areas in the Core Strategy. There is a need to reflect on this, and consider whether the balance between development in the city centre / inner city and other parts of Leeds is the right one i.e. whether it remains sustainable and will meet wider objectives and needs in the long term. 

Since the Core Strategy was adopted the Council has declared a Climate Emergency, which puts increased emphasis on the importance of ensuring the sustainability of development from an environmental, as well as a social and economic perspective. The Best City Ambition has also been published, and a number of other Council strategies updated. There is a need therefore to ensure that the spatial strategy continues to manage development in such a way that maximises its contribution to realising the ambition for Leeds.

New evidence on the walkability of neighbourhoods in Leeds and accessibility to services has also been produced. This identifies which places in the district have the best levels of accessibility, as well as places where improvements to accessibility and/or the range of services and facilities would be needed before they could function as '20-minute neighbourhoods'. The Local Plan Update introduces the 20-minute neighbourhood concept and there is a need to consider more fully how this evidence could inform how growth is spatially distributed over the next plan period (2022-2040) in order to maximise the accessibility of development.

New evidence on future flood risk across Leeds has also been developed since the adoption of the Core Strategy. This has informed a number of new policies proposed in LPU1, and needs to be taken into account when planning for future growth across the City.

SP1 is complemented by a series of further spatial policies, which set out a number of specific spatial priorities for the city centre, regeneration priority programme areas, economic development, the Green Belt and transport infrastructure investment. There is a need to review  policies aimed at supporting regeneration in the City continue to be effective.   Some of the schemes identified within these spatial policies have also been implemented, and others require review to ensure that they remain up-to-date and reflect local priorities and future opportunities over the next plan period.

What might new policy do to address this?

Through LLP 2040 it will be necessary to make choices about how Leeds grows over the period 2022-2040 in order to best meet social, economic and environmental objectives. This will require an understanding of the Metropolitan District, its opportunities and constraints and the levels of growth we are likely to be dealing with in the long term.  Account will also need to be made of a range of factors and consideration of how different objectives may be influenced or affected by different patterns of development. Key factors include;

Accessibility

Context: The accessibility of new development to services, facilities and transport infrastructure is very important. New evidence on walkable accessibility and the presence of '20-minute neighbourhoods' in Leeds could potentially change the way in which accessibility is interpreted through the plan, and the way it shapes the overall strategy.

LLP 2040: There is an opportunity for the spatial strategy for LLP 2040 to relate more directly to the 20MNH approach. It could seek to support and maintain existing 20MNHs, consider how development could improve how well existing places function as 20MNH and/or look to create new places which have the characteristics of 20MNHs. The 20MNH approach could also have implications for the 'hierarchy' of settlements defined through the Spatial Strategy, and the amount of growth directed to different locations. As part of this, consideration will need to be made of what the opportunities are for delivering new infrastructure alongside and/or independent of development and the role that the planning system can have in influencing this.

For some non-housing uses (for example employment, minerals and waste development) accessibility to facilities that are not considered through the 20MNH approach will also be relevant in determining the most appropriate locations for future development, for example rail freight links or public transport accessibility. These will need to be taken into account in planning for these uses, and making sure that opportunities for new employment have good links with places where people live, or that residential development is well supported by other types of services and facilities.

Regeneration and Inclusive Growth

Context: existing Core Strategy policy identifies 4 'regeneration priority programme areas', based on the Council / HCA Local Investment Plan 2011-2015, and the Aire Valley is identified as a location for major economic development and regeneration. The Local Plan has a role to play in supporting regeneration activity in Leeds, and supporting the objectives of the Inclusive Growth and Health & Wellbeing Strategies.

LLP2040: The Plan will need to determine, reflecting up-to-date evidence and wider Council initiatives, whether areas should be identified as regeneration priorities for the plan period. Consideration will need to be made of the vision and objectives underpinning regeneration activity in these areas, the role that the Local Plan can have in supporting and enabling this (including interventions that could be made through the plan that support the market to bring forward sites in these locations), and there are any specific development needs in these areas that should be reflected and/or prioritised through the Spatial Strategy. 

Viability and Land Value Capture

Context: Development viability varies across the city, with the opportunities to secure affordable housing as a proportion of market housing development (or any other forms of planning gain) being greater in higher value areas. As a result, the spatial distribution of housing development will have direct implications for affordable housing delivery, or opportunities for other forms of land value capture.

LLP 2040: Consideration will need to be given to the extent to which maximising affordable housing delivery, or any other form of planning gain, should be prioritised, and the implications that different patterns of growth may have for the delivery of affordable housing. In terms of affordable housing specifically, this will need to be considered in conjunction with the review of affordable housing policy more generally.

Land supply

Context: The current spatial strategy, in line with national policy, seeks to prioritise the use of previously developed land in urban areas, but allows for urban extensions to meet local needs. This has a direct influence on the spatial strategy, as the supply of previously developed sites is predominantly focussed in the City Centre and Inner Area. Infill sites within the settlement hierarchy are also prioritised.

LLP 2040: Through the Spatial Strategy, consideration will need to be made of what potential land is available for development for housing, employment and other uses.  A 'call for sites' will be needed to determine where there is landowner, developer, minerals or waste operator or community interest for development. However, the Council will also need to carry out detailed work on the main sources of land supply.  This will include looking at:

• undeveloped brownfield land capacity within our existing urban areas
• intensifying existing development, such as sub-dividing larger homes, garden developments, developing on car parks or building to higher densities
• remodelling existing areas, such as industrial areas or making better use of town and local centres
• extending the edges of settlements
• strategic new settlements either through urban extension or stand-alone places.

As part of this, an Urban Capacity Study will need to be undertaken to determine the extent of development opportunities within urban areas, and how varying density requirements may affect the capacity of the land supply. Consideration will need to be made of how these sites are spatially distributed, and how they align with identified needs for development and other objectives of the Plan. There will also be a need to consider what role land currently designated as 'Rural Land' or as 'Green Belt' could or should have in meeting development needs. National Policy makes clear that the release of Green Belt land should only be considered in exceptional circumstances, when all other reasonable options for meeting identified needs have been fully explored. If such a need arises, the Plan will need to set the priorities for considering options for Green Belt release. 

Development constraints

Context: There are a number of factors that may limit the scale of and/or potential for new development in some locations. This includes flood risk, biodiversity, heritage and green & blue infrastructure considerations. The local character and distinctiveness of places within Leeds also need to be respected, and the capacity of existing infrastructure may (if not addressed) place a limit on the extent of growth that could be supported in some locations.  Funding, land values and the need to ensure that development is viable to a developer can also be a constraint.   

LLP 2040: The Spatial Strategy will need to reflect on the latest evidence in relation to the constraints noted above, and consider what implications they have for the scale of growth that could be directed to different locations.

All of the factors identified above will need to be considered in conjunction with each other, and alongside the wider work being done to establish the need for different types of development over the plan period. The choices made through the Spatial Strategy will have direct implications for new/revised policy developed for all of the topics that are addressed through LLP 2040, and regard will need to be had to the evidence that is prepared in relation to the wider topic areas. Consideration will also need to be made of any cross-boundary implications that different approaches to the Spatial Strategy may have (particularly in terms of its transport implications, and the role that Leeds could/should have as a location for industrial or logistics development), and how it aligns with the plans and aspirations of neighbouring authorities and WYCA.

A range of alternative options will need to be explored, and with the relative merits of each being considered before any conclusions are reached. This recognises that different options will be likely to benefit different objectives, and views may the preferred strategy will vary dependent on how different stakeholders prioritise different factors.

As part of considering the above, there will also be a need to determine how development needs are related to individual locations. The Core Strategy currently breaks down overall housing needs into HMCA areas, whilst employment needs are expressed (by type) at a city-wide level. Options could include breaking this down to settlement, ward, HMCA or another spatial level, and the relative merits of different approaches (and how they relate to the evidence of development needs) will need to be considered.

What do we need to get there?

The spatial strategy relates to work being delivered by a range of services across the Council, including planning, regeneration and transport. As a result, it will be vital that it is developed in partnership with relevant sections, ensuring that opportunities to support wider objectives through planning as taken wherever possible. 

To inform the development of the spatial strategy further analysis of the evidence on 20MNH will need to be undertaken, to determine how it could influence / inform understanding of the opportunities for new development across the City.

An Urban Capacity Study needs to be prepared to determine what opportunities there are for development within the urban area, how this is spatially distributed, and the extent to which this would meet the needs arising over the plan period (in quantitative and qualitative terms). If there is insufficient capacity within urban areas, or the opportunities available would not meet identified needs and other priorities, then a Green Belt Review may be required to identify potential options for Green Belt release. It is proposed that a 'Call for Sites' is undertaken alongside the scoping consultation to enable potential development sites to be identified by local communities, landowners, developers or other interested parties, which will help inform this work.

The Infrastructure Study will need to be updated, in order to identify any constraints to growth posed by the capacity of existing infrastructure in particularly locations, and the extent to which there may be opportunities to address this as part of any new development. We will need to work closely with infrastructure providers to prepare this, to ensure that there is a joined-up approach to infrastructure provision over the plan period.

Have your say

The consultation runs for 6 weeks from Friday 10 February until Friday 24 March 2023.