First monitoring report for IDP published - what is it?

Tuesday 04 September 2018

The first Island Development Plan Annual Monitoring Report has been published by the States, containing updates on how the plan is performing in delivering its six objectives.

It contains "a wealth of information" on those objectives, and the proactive elements of the States’ Strategic Land Use Plan (SLUP) and the States’ priorities in the Policy & Resource Plan.

The idea of the monitoring report is to ensure the IDP remains relevant, and is achieving what it is intended for. It also allows the plan to be more responsive and adapt to change.

"The main purpose of the AMR is to establish, via evidence, whether the IDP’s policies are delivering what was intended by the States, whether there are any blockages to this and whether any amendment is required to enable policies to operate more effectively," a DPA spokesperson said.

"The AMR’s purpose is not about re-visiting the States’ clear decisions of policy principle in terms of the spatial distribution of development but is focused on determining how effective the IDP’s policies have been in delivering positive outcomes against those decisions."

Pictured: The report contains analysis of all elements of the IDP, whether that be how much housing has been created so far, to how allocated sites have progressed. It also lists action areas and what progress has been made on them.

In total, the AMR includes 14 "thematic reports" which propose actions if required to address any issues identified - it proposes 82 actions including further guidance, research, monitoring, consultation and liaison between the DPA and other States’ services, Committees and other stakeholder organisations.

Jim Rowles, Director of Planning, said: "I am pleased that in 2017 there was a high rate of approval of planning applications and no appeals against refusal of planning permission. This illustrates how the positive and flexible policies of the IDP, along with encouragement of high quality pre-application discussions, have enabled positive outcomes to be reached for the vast majority of planning applications."

As this is Guernsey’s first in-depth monitoring of a development plan, it is anticipated that the level of detail provided in the annual reports will expand over time as the impact of IDP’s policies can be examined over a longer period. Some data is being analysed for the first time so establishing a baseline of data against which change can be monitored over the 10 year lifetime of the IDP.

The D&PA also publishes quarterly monitoring reports (QMRs). These are factual reports providing an update on the delivery of housing and employment uses. The four quarterly reports for 2017 and first two reports for 2018 have been published and are available on the States’ website.

Deputy John Gollop, President of the D&PA, said: "The AMR is a wide ranging review of the most important areas of planning policy for which the D&PA is responsible and is informed by valuable contributions from States’ Committees and stakeholders for which the D&PA is grateful. I am pleased that, while it is too early in most cases to identify trends, the AMR has shown that the policies of the IDP are effective and relevant and are delivering the land use aspects of the States’ priorities so that there is no  evidence at this stage that the IDP needs to be amended."

The AMR for 2017 can be accessed via the States’ website at https://gov.gg/planningpolicy.