§ Sir Peter EmeryTo ask the Secretary of State for the Environment, Transport and the Regions what steps his Department plans to take concerning the lack of a waste strategy plan for landfill sites in Devon after 2007. [123077]
§ Mr. MeacherDevon county council is preparing a Waste Local Plan for Devon to cover the period up to 2011 (the Plan will not include the administrative areas of Plymouth City council, Torbay council and Dartmoor National Park Authority as they will be covered by the emerging Local Plans of those authorities).
In October 1998, the county council consulted interested parties about the draft Waste Local Plan which contained policies for waste disposal by landfill. In their response to the consultation, the Government Office for the South-West commented that:
433WThe Plan does not convey a clear sense of the spatial strategy, or of the preferred mix of waste management methods, and there are no specific development proposals or land allocations, or clear locational guidance. Government policy advises that local plans need both to set out the authority's policies for the control of development and to make proposals for the development of land and to allocate land for specific purposes. It is important to confront these issues, because the Plan indicates that important choices will need to be implemented well within the plan period to 2011. The Plan should therefore make those choices and propose the key developments necessary to implement them.The Plan will be deposited for public consultation in the autumn; if a public local inquiry is necessary it is likely to take place in the autumn of 2001, and the Plan is expected to be adopted in the summer of 2003. The county council will review the Plan every five years in order to take account of evolving technology, any revised planning policies and new legislation.