Sustainability Appraisal of the Sandwell Local Plan 2024-2041

6 The preferred approach

6.1 SLP policies

6.1.1 Following comments received during the Regulation 18 consultations and recommendations set out in the SA reports, SMBC have revisited the policies of the SLP. There are a total of 88 proposed policies within the SLP.

6.1.2 The proposed SLP policies seek to support the delivery of sustainable growth within Sandwell. The policies will help to ensure that potential adverse impacts on sustainability identified as a result of the development proposed within the SLP are avoided, mitigated or subject to compensatory measures wherever possible and that development proposals are accompanied by relevant supporting information to ensure that the impacts of development can be appropriately factored into land use decision making processes.

6.1.3 The 88 SLP policies are listed below in Table 6.1 and have been assessed in Appendix F alongside the proposed vision and strategic objectives of the SLP.

Table 6.1: Sandwell Local Plan policies

6.1.4 A summary of the SA assessment of policies is presented in Table 6.2, with the full evaluation presented in Appendix F.

6.1.5 The assessment of the SLP vision and the 18 SLP objectives has identified negligible, minor positive and majority positive effects. The vision and objectives set a positive framework for the SLP as a whole.

6.1.6 For the majority of SLP policies, the assessment has identified negligible, minor positive or major positive effects. Negligible impacts are identified where the policy does not directly influence the achievement of that SA Objective, which is the case for many of the more 'thematic' policies.

6.1.7 A greater range of sustainability effects is identified for policies that have potential to introduce new development, for example, the housing and economy policies. Policy SDS1 sets out the broad direction for growth. As such, minor negative impacts have been identified for SA Objectives 7 (Pollution) and 8 (Waste), owing to the potential for the large amount of proposed development to lead to increases in pollution and waste.

6.1.8 Uncertain impacts have been identified for certain SA Objectives as a result of some of the policies in the housing and economy policies. The range in potential impacts for these policies owes to the fact that large developments could have significant adverse effects, however, the policy requirements have the ability to ensure these developments create some positive impacts or reduce the potential adverse effects if designed and carried out appropriately.

6.1.9 Additionally, the majority of economic policies and several housing policies do not set out details regarding the location, scale and nature of development. Therefore, there is some uncertainty against several SA Objectives whether the proposed development would lead to positive or adverse effects overall.

Table 6.2: Summary of policy assessments

6.2 SLP site allocations

6.2.1 Following the assessment of reasonable alternatives in the SA, and consideration of other evidence base documents, SMBC have allocated a total of 97 development sites including:

• 60 residential-led sites;
• 28 employment-led sites;
• One Gypsy, Traveller and Travelling Showperson site; and
• Eight sites for mixed use.

6.2.2 The post-mitigation SA assessments for the 97 sites chosen for allocation by SMBC are summarised in Table 6.4. As explained in section 5.7, the full post-mitigation assessments for all reasonable alternative sites, including the allocated sites, can be found in Appendix G.

Table 6.3: Summary of post-mitigation site assessments for allocated sites (extracted from Appendix G)

6.3 Whole plan appraisal

6.3.1 The following chapters present an assessment of the likely significant effects associated with the SLP in relation to the following topics:

• Air (Chapter 7);
• Biodiversity, flora and fauna (Chapter 8);
• Climatic factors (Chapter 9);
• Cultural heritage (Chapter 10);
• Human health (Chapter 11);
• Landscape (Chapter 12);
• Population and material assets (Chapter 13);
• Soil (Chapter 14); and
• Water (Chapter 15).

6.3.2 Each of the topic sections are presented in terms of baseline, impacts, mitigation and residual effects, where appropriate. The topics have been appraised in terms of plan-wide impacts and draw on all aspects of the SA process, including the findings presented for the assessment of policies and site allocations (see Volume 2: Appendices for the full assessments). The assessments include consideration of the impacts arising as a consequence of the inter-relationship between the different topics and identify secondary, cumulative and synergistic effects where they arise.