‘Sustainability’ versus ‘Sensitivity’

Two of the key concepts that underpin the local plan are ‘sustainability’ (i.e. an areas suitability for development - Policy 1) and ‘sensitivity’ (it’s importance in terms of protecting the Green Belt). Individual settlements are ranked on both counts, and development is favoured in the most ‘sustainable’ ones; conversely, the barrier is higher in the most ‘sensitive ’ones. What is significant is that for the purposes of assessing ‘sustainability’ Normandy and Flexford’ have been treat as one settlement, whereas for ‘sensitivity’ they have been treated separately. This could almost have been designed to give us the outcome we have, as in terms of ‘sustainability’ all the assets from the two settlements are aggregated - which maximises its score on this count - but in terms of Green Belt ‘sensitivity’ the open area between the two settlements is
disregarded - which reduces our score on that one.

This is simply inconsistent’. In fact the original data (used in the first consultation) identified Normandy as one settlement. The data was rewritten in 2014 dividing the settlements in two. Data cannot be changed.