Re: Rochford District Local Plan

Consultation under Regulation 18 of Town and Country Planning (Local Planning) (England) Regulations 2012

Submission of the Education and Skills Funding Agency

1. The Education and Skills Funding Agency (ESFA) welcomes the opportunity to contribute to the development of planning policy at the local level.

2. The ESFA launched on 1st April 2017, brings together the existing responsibilities of the Education Funding Agency (EFA) and the Skills Funding Agency (SFA), to create a single funding agency accountable for funding education and training for children, young people and adults. The ESFA are accountable for £61 billion of funding a year for the education and training sector, including support for all state-provided education for 8 million children aged 3 to 16, and 1.6 million young people aged 16 to 19.

3. Under the provisions of the Education Act 2011 and the Academies Act 2010, all new state schools are now academies/free schools and the ESFA is the delivery body for many of these, rather than local education authorities. As such, we aim to work closely with local authority education departments and planning authorities to meet the demand for new school places and new schools. We do this through a variety of means, including by supporting the adoption of sound local plan policies, site allocations and guidance (all based on robust evidence) that facilitate the delivery of education infrastructure where and when it is needed and maximise developer contributions for schools. We do this through a variety of means, including by supporting the adoption of sound local plan policies, site allocations and guidance (all based on robust evidence) that facilitate the delivery of education infrastructure where and when it is needed and maximise developer contributions for schools. In this capacity, we would like to offer the following comments in response to the proposals outlined in the above consultation document.
General Comments on the Local Plan Approach to New Schools

4. The ESFA notes that the objectively assessed need for homes in the district to 2037 is significant at 331 to 361 homes per year, or 6620 to 7220 in total. While the annual housing target is still to be confirmed, taking into account the environmental and other constraints such as Green Belt, this level of growth will place substantial additional pressure on social infrastructure such as education facilities. The Local Plan will need to be 'positively prepared' to meet the objectively assessed development needs and infrastructure requirements.

5. The ESFA welcomes reference within the plan to the importance of developing appropriate social and community infrastructure, including education infrastructure, to support growth (e.g. paragraphs 4.6, 8.2 and 9.18-9.24; strategic objective 5; infrastructure topic paper).

6. The ESFA welcomes the presentation of options for planning for future education and skills development at paragraph 9.29. Within the options, the council indicates its intention to roll forward (with some updates) Core Strategy policies CLT2 and CLT3 which set out the approach to facilitating the delivery of new schools, school expansion and financial contributions. The ESFA agree that these policies provide a useful starting point, covering key principles such as securing infrastructure to meet needs generated from development via developer contributions, coordination of infrastructure and development timing/phasing, allocation of sites for schools where need is identified and working closely with Essex County Council (as education authority) to monitor supply and demand. However, it may be advantageous to avoid referring to specific sites within the policy to allow flexibility for these to change over the plan period and in response to shifts in projections of need. In refining these policies, the council should have regard to Essex County Council's model infrastructure policy.

7. In light of the requirement for all Local Plans to be consistent with national policy, you will have no doubt taken account of key national policies relating to the provision of new school places, but it would be helpful if they were explicitly referenced or signposted within the document. In particular:
- The National Planning Policy Framework (NPPF) advises that local planning authorities (LPAs) should take a proactive, positive and collaborative approach to ensuring that a sufficient choice of school places is available to meet the needs of communities and that LPAs should give great weight to the need to create, expand or alter schools to widen choice in education (para 72).
- The ESFA supports the principle of LPAs safeguarding land for the provision of new schools to meet government planning policy objectives as set out in paragraph 72 of the NPPF. When new schools are developed, local authorities should also seek to safeguard land for any future expansion of new schools where demand indicates this might be necessary.- Rochford District Council should also have regard to the Joint Policy Statement from the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government and the Secretary of State for Education on 'Planning for Schools Development' (2011) which sets out the Government's commitment to support the development of state-funded schools and their delivery through the planning system.

8. Given the above and the Duty to Cooperate on strategic priorities such as community infrastructure (NPPF para 156) , the ESFA encourages close working with local authorities during all stages of planning policy development to help guide the development of new school infrastructure and to meet the predicted demand for primary and secondary school places. Please add the ESFA to your list of relevant organisations with which you engage in preparation of the plan.

9. In this respect, the ESFA commends, for example, the approach taken by the London Borough of Ealing in producing a Planning for Schools Development Plan Document (DPD) . The DPD provides policy direction and establishes the Council's approach to providing primary and secondary school places and helps to identify sites which may be suitable for providing them (including, where necessary and justified, on Green Belt/MOL), whether by extension to existing schools or on new sites. The DPD (adopted in May 2016) includes site allocations as well as policies to safeguard the sites and assist implementation. The DPD may provide useful guidance with respect to an evidence based approach to planning for new schools in the emerging Local Plan, securing site allocations for schools as well as providing example policies to aid delivery through Development Management policies.

Site Allocations

10. At this early stage of the emerging Local Plan site allocations have not yet been drafted. However, the ESFA welcomes the council's recognition of the importance of ensuring "that land set aside for education is specifically allocated for the use, so that this is reflected in the value of the land which would have a positive impact on viability". Ensuring there is an adequate supply of sites for schools is essential and will ensure that Rochford District Council can swiftly and flexibly respond to the existing and future need for school places to meet the needs of the district over the plan period.

11. The next version of the Local Plan should seek to identify specific sites (existing or new) which can deliver the school places needed to support growth, based on the latest evidence of identified need and demand from Essex County Council documented in an up-to-date Infrastructure Delivery Plan (the ESFA notes that the council intends to develop this is due course alongside the next version of the Local Plan). The site allocations or associated safeguarding policies should also seek to clarify requirements for the delivery of new schools, including when they should be delivered to support housing growth (where known), the minimum site area required, any preferred site characteristics, and any requirements for safeguarding additional land for future expansion of schools where need and demand indicates this might be necessary. Policies or supporting text should make it clear that developments will be required to contribute to land and construction costs for new schools or expansions, to meet the need generated by the development.

12. While it is important to provide clarity and certainty to developers, retaining a degree of flexibility about site specific requirements for schools is also necessary given that the need for school places can vary over time due to the many variables affecting it. The ESFA therefore recommend the council consider highlighting in the next version of the local plan that:
- specific requirements for developer contributions to enlargements to existing schools and the provision of new schools for any particular site will be confirmed at application stage to ensure the latest data on identified need informs delivery; and that
- requirements to deliver schools on some sites could change in future if it were demonstrated and agreed that the site had become surplus to requirements, and is therefore no longer required for school use.

13. The ESFA would like to be included in discussions on potential site allocations, as there could be pipeline school projects in Rochford District which may be appropriate for specific designation.

14. The local planning authority should note that there are two routes available for establishing a new school. Firstly, where a local authority thinks a new school needs to be established, section 6A of EIA 2006 places the local authority under a duty to seek proposals from new school proposers (academy trusts) to establish an academy (free school) and to specify a date by which proposals must be submitted to the local authority. In this 'local authority presumption route' the local authority is responsible for finding the site, providing the capital and pre-/post-opening funding and managing the build process. Secondly, an academy trust can apply directly to the Department for Education during an application round or 'wave' to set up a free school. The local authority is less involved in this route but may support groups in pre-opening and/or may provide a site for basic need. For further details please see:

https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/establishing-a-new-school-free-school-presumption

Developer Contributions and CIL

15. One of the tests of soundness is that a Local Plan is 'effective' i.e. the plan should be deliverable over its period. In this context and with specific regard to planning for schools, there is a need to ensure that education contributions made by developers are sufficient to deliver the additional school places required to meet the increase in demand generated by new developments. Planning obligation requirements are set out in Essex County Council's Developers' Guide to Infrastructure Contributions (2016). However, within the local plan the council has highlighted concerns that "...planning obligations cannot address all the infrastructure deficiencies that will be caused by new development, particularly the incremental impact of smaller schemes, which individually do not warrant the provision of planning obligations" (paragraph 8.70). Consequently, the council is intending to develop a Community Infrastructure Levy (CIL) charging schedule alongside development of the Local Plan, to ensure that the right infrastructure is secured across the district.

16. The ESFA support the Council's approach to ensuring developer contributions address the impacts arising from growth and would be interested in reviewing any draft CIL charging schedule, Regulation 123 List and supporting evidence in the Infrastructure Delivery Plan. As such, please add the ESFA to the database for future CIL consultations.

Conclusion

17. Finally, I hope the above comments are helpful in shaping Rochford District Council's Local Plan, with specific regard to the provision of land for new schools. Please advise the ESFA of any proposed changes to the emerging Local Plan policies, supporting text, site allocations and/or evidence base arising from these comments.

18. Please do not hesitate to contact me if you have any queries regarding this response. The ESFA looks forward to continuing to work with Rochford District Council to aid in the preparation of a sound Local Plan.