Strategy, Objectives and Infrastructure

The Local Plan Preferred Approach seeks to build on previous visions, including that of the Southend Core Strategy, London Southend Joint Airport Area Action Plan and the more recent Southend Central Area Action Plan. It also seeks to embrace The Southend City Vision: Our City, Our Future.

The Southend City Vision (‘Our City, Our Future’), developed by the Southend City Partnership, sets a clear direction for Southend’s growth and development, prepared through extensive consultation and engagement. The consultation highlighted priorities and aspirations from residents, business owners, visitors, and students. The communication campaign and engagement strategy reached over 10,000 people, with over 2,000 responses received to the consultation survey.

Looking to 2035, the vision is that: ‘Southend-on-Sea is a vibrant, welcoming and well-connected coastal city brimming with opportunities, seamlessly blending its rich heritage with a contemporary, creative outlook.’ It prioritises the following themes: safe and thriving communities; bustling high streets and business spaces; haven for leisure and creativity; clean, green and proud. For more information see: Southend City Vision - Visit Southend.

A key and integral part of developing the Local Plan will be to encapsulate The Southend City Vision and present a place-based vision and set of strategic objectives for the Local Plan.

The ‘Refining the Plan Options’ document, which represented the second stage of public consultation on the new Local Plan, set out a draft aim, development principles and a set of strategic objectives for comment. You told us that in relation to these elements of the draft plan:

• the Draft Aim, Spatial Objectives and Development Principles are broadly supported;            
• infrastructure of all types is essential to support new development;
• climate change should be central to the plan and given urgent attention to reach net zero ambition;
• housing numbers are unrealistic in the context of Southend;
• transport accessibility must be improved, including for non-car modes;
• the regeneration of the high street and local centres is needed to support local businesses and jobs; 
• our neighbourhoods should be sustainable and respect the different character areas of Southend; and
• the environmental aims should include more detail on protecting the coastline, biodiversity, agricultural land, and flood risk management.

A draft vision and strategic objectives have been amended in response to these comments. The thematic sections of the plan then set out the detailed strategy for these and the relevant policies relating to them. 

The draft long-term vision and strategic objectives encapsulates what we envisage the city will be like in the future. The planning policies contained within the Local Plan will seek to aspire to deliver the vision.

Southend-on-Sea is prosperous and well connected, with a quality of life to match. As a “City by the Sea”, we have led the way on how to grow a sustainable, healthy and inclusive city that has made Southend more resilient to a changing climate.
Together, the distinct neighbourhoods of Southend-on-Sea provide a diverse range of opportunities for people at all stages of their life, whilst improved infrastructure, facilities, green spaces and services are of high quality, easily accessible and support personal independence and a strong sense of community.
We cherish our coastal identity, culture and celebrate our built heritage – a seafront that entertains and a shoreline, from the historic Shoebury Garrison to the fishing village of Old Leigh, which always inspires.

Strategic Objective 1: Deliver new and improved infrastructure to meet sustainable growth by pursuing an ‘infrastructure led’ approach.
Strategic Objective 2: Contribute towards the delivery of sustainable, safe and healthy complete neighbourhoods. 
Strategic Objective 3: Reduce deprivation and reduce inequalities between the neighbourhoods of Southend.
Strategic Objective 4: Promote and protect community and sport and recreation facilities.

Strategic Objective 5: Develop Southend’s role as a major business centre attracting investment and providing new jobs, where both existing and new enterprises can prosper.
Strategic Objective 6: Regenerate the City Centre to provide for a diversity of uses, including cultural and creative enterprises, complemented by a growing residential population, set within a quality and green environment.
Strategic Objective 7: Establish Southend as a major resort and year-round destination and increase the value of the visitor economy.
Strategic Objective 8: Secure the regeneration of Southend as a cultural and intellectual hub and a centre of education excellence.
Strategic Objective 9: Provide a choice of homes for people at all stages of life.

Strategic Objective 10: Southend is the regions first choice coastal tourism destination, and the seafront and marine environment has been protected and enhanced.
Strategic Objective 11: Enhance the city’s built heritage and capitalise on it to promote tourism and regeneration.
Strategic Objective 12: Maintain and enhance the distinct character and environment of the city’s neighbourhoods to ensure that they remain vibrant, attractive and accessible.
Strategic Objective 13: Create well designed and attractive places that respond positively to the distinctive character and historic value of the city’s different neighbourhoods and enhances the natural environment.
Strategic Objective 14: Make the most efficient and effective use of land and buildings and prioritise the use of previously developed land.

Strategic Objective 15: Prevent or minimise the impact of climate change, including for air quality and flood risk and improve energy efficiency.
Strategic Objective 16: Improve the quality and accessibility of green space whilst safeguarding environmental assets and enhancing biodiversity.
Strategic Objective 17: Greening the city through extensive landscaping and tree planting to create a network of green spaces and corridors.
Strategic Objective 18: Protecting and enhancing the quality of the coastal environment and its marine biodiversity.
Strategic Objective 19: Regenerate and bring back into productive long-term use land that is contaminated or otherwise degraded, including where appropriate use for biodiversity or other natural resource value.

Strategic Objective 20: Improve accessibility, connectivity, sustainability, safety and ease of movement to, from and within the city.
Strategic Objective 21: Reduce the need to travel by achieving closer alignment of homes, jobs, infrastructure and services within a network of highly accessible neighbourhoods.
Strategic Objective 22: Provide multi-modal transport facilities that achieve seamless and integrated connectivity between neighbourhoods, with neighbouring towns and the wider region.
Strategic Objective 23: Facilitate the sustainable growth of London Southend Airport to realise its potential in becoming a carbon neutral regional transport hub that provides a range of job opportunities.
Strategic Objective 24: Explore opportunities to utilise the River Thames as a sustainable transport corridor for business and leisure use subject to protecting the coastal and marine environment.

Do you agree with the draft Vision and Strategic Objectives that set out where we want to be in the future? Please explain your answer.

The Vision and Strategic Objectives have in this version of the draft plan been developed into three Strategic Policies, namely:

• Strategic Policy SP1: Spatial Principles; 
• Strategic Policy SP2: Spatial Strategy; and
• Strategic Policy SP3: Infrastructure

The three strategic policies provide the framework for other thematic strategic policies and more detailed development management policies which are set out in subsequent sections of this Local Plan Preferred Approach.

The Spatial Principles seek to ensure that all development proposals achieve quality design and environments that make the best use of previously developed land to deliver sustainable development that enhances the built form and sense of place in the city whilst protecting its character and amenities.

Strategic Policy SP1: Spatial Principles embraces comments made on the development principles as contained in the ‘Refining the Plan Options’ document.

      1. The Council will require all new development to accord with the following Spatial Principles where relevant:

1. Ensure development is served by necessary infrastructure by pursuing an ‘infrastructure led’ approach;
2. Achieve the urban renewal and sustainable regeneration of Southend’s existing urban area and make the best use of suitable previously developed land for development; 
3. Regenerate and renew Southend City Centre;
4. Minimise the use of ‘greenfield’ land;
5. Promote and enhance tourism, culture and leisure; 
6. Promote Southend’s sub-regional role as a place for economic growth particularly at the key business clusters of Southend City Centre, London Southend Airport and the employment areas as defined on the Policies Map;
7. Enhance the city’s role as a cultural and intellectual hub and promote Southend as an educational centre of excellence;
8. Locate development at well-connected and sustainable locations and facilitate and promote modal shift through improved sustainable and active travel; 
9. Support good quality, innovative design that contributes positively to the creation of successful places;
10. Safeguard and promote the vitality and viability of existing City, District, Neighbourhood and Local Centres;
11. Make Southend more resilient to the effects of climate change through mitigation and adaptation, including flood risk management and vulnerability to increased temperatures;
12. Respect the character and appearance of landscapes and the built environment, and conserve and enhance the historic environment;
13. Create, enhance and protect a comprehensive green and blue infrastructure network across the city and ensure net gains in biodiversity;
14. Avoid areas of land instability or adequately mitigate harmful effects.

The Spatial Principles set out above in Strategic Policy SP1 are applied in Strategic Policy SP2: Spatial Strategy to provide a clear indication of how regeneration and growth will be distributed within the city to deliver sustainable regeneration and to ensure that growth is directed to places with good concentrations of infrastructure and accessibility to a variety of transport modes.

Sustainable Development

1. Growth in homes, jobs and services that constitutes sustainable development will be welcomed where it contributes to the achievement of, and does not compromise, the Council’s Strategic Objectives.
2. Development and investment will be expected to contribute to the effectiveness and integration of the strategic transport network. 
3. All development will need to accord with the Policies Map.

Regeneration and Growth:

4. The Local Plan makes provision for 9,500 new homes and 7,500 additional jobs to 2040 within the existing built-up area of Southend and on land at Fossetts Farm to the north of the city. The primary focus of regeneration and growth within Southend will be:

• Southend Central Area - regenerate the City Centre as a sub-regional centre and the Central Seafront as the focus for major resort facilities, providing a full range of quality services to provide for new jobs and 4,000 additional homes in conjunction with the upgrading of strategic and local passenger transport accessibility, including the development of Southend Central and Southend Victoria railway stations as strategic transport interchanges, together with the enhancement of the University Campus.  

5. In addition, appropriate regeneration and growth will be focussed in the following locations:

• Seafront - to enhance the Seafront’s role as a successful leisure and tourist attraction and place to live, and make the best use of the River Thames, subject to the safeguarding of the biodiversity importance of the foreshore*. 
• Fossetts - To create a sustainable community by enhancing the economic offer around Temple Farm, leisure potential of Garon Park and introducing high quality mixed-use residential development at Fossetts Farm, delivering around 1,200 new homes, with improved connections and access to existing shops and services.
• Shoeburyness - to promote the role of Shoeburyness as a place to live and work, led by the successful redevelopment at Shoebury Garrison, regeneration of local shopping centres and existing industrial estates to secure new jobs and 700 additional homes, linked to improved access.
• London Southend Airport and environs – providing a strategic employment opportunity to support the delivery of additional jobs including employment directly related to the Airport. These jobs will contribute to the delivery of the jobs totals for Rochford District Council and Southend-on-Sea City Council as per the provisions in the adopted airport Joint Area Action Plan – the apportionment to each authority will be based on a 50-50 split of the overall jobs total to be provided within the JAAP area.
• Priority Urban Areas – these comprise

1. The District Centres of Leigh and Westcliff and other Neighbourhood Centres.
2. A13 Key Passenger Transport Corridor
3. The main Employment Areas as defined on the Policies Map.

Place Making and the Neighbourhoods of Southend

6. The Council will seek to encourage growth and sustainable development and to manage change, to create a network of connected, sustainable, high quality, locally distinctive, and complete neighbourhoods with a range of services that are easily accessible.
7. The Council will require all new development in the city to contribute to enhancing a sense of place and improving the character of the area and neighbourhood, whilst acknowledging the need for growth. In particular, development proposals should:

• respond to and enhance local character, particularly heritage assets and respect the different identity and character of the neighbourhoods of Southend; and
• be informed by the Neighbourhoods of Southend (refer to Chapter 12).

*in particular ensuring that European and international sites for nature conservation are not adversely affected by any new development. Appropriate and sustainable flood risk management measures will be provided as part of a comprehensive shoreline management strategy.

Refer to Strategic Policy Option 3b below to comment on the potential option of providing a comprehensive new neighbourhood on land designated as Green Belt to the north of Southend.

The provisions of the Strategic Policies contained in the Local Plan are summarized and depicted on Figure 3.4: Key Diagram.

Infrastructure capacity and deficiency issues have been a recurrent theme in the public consultation responses to the Local Plan with comments from both the general public and infrastructure providers. Strategic Policy SP3 seeks to ensure that individual or cumulative new development does not have a negative impact on existing infrastructure, especially where it is operating at or close to capacity. Where existing infrastructure is shown to need upgrading the developer will be expected to work with providers to identify robust mechanisms to show how this will be addressed to include identified funding and implementation mechanisms by means of legal agreements as appropriate as part of an ‘infrastructure led’ approach to development.

New or improved infrastructure must be delivered first or at pace to meet the needs of new development. For larger development proposals that may be built out over a number of years this should take account of phasing to ensure that utilities and supporting services and facilities are in place to ensure new communities are sustainable and can thrive.

The Council will work with partners to ensure the provision of physical, social and environmental infrastructure. The Council will also continue to lobby central Government and relevant agencies for improvements to infrastructure provision which serve the city. This particularly applies to transport infrastructure and the need for improvements to the accessibility of the city to and from the wider region which are vital to the city’s local business and tourism economy.

Infrastructure covers a wide variety of different types of provision including:

• Utilities - water, sewerage, storm water drainage, flood risk, electricity, gas, waste management and telecommunications;
• Transport – highways, public rights of way including cycleways, railways, other public transport (see Strategic Policy SP10 Transport and Connectivity);
• Education - early learning, primary and secondary schools, specialist schools, further and higher education including libraries;
• Health and Welfare - GP's, dentists, clinics, health centres, emergency services and hospitals; and
• Social - sports, leisure, parks and community facilities.

Good quality infrastructure is essential to people’s quality of life, health and wellbeing. It is central to creating neighbourhoods where people want to live and to the effective operation of places.

Infrastructure in Southend varies in quality. This is partly a reflection of the age of some of the provision which needs upgrading, such as the Victorian sewers and some of the electricity networks. Parts of the sewer network encounter issues with exceptional flows which have resulted in overflow incidents on the foreshore. Elements of the electricity network in Leigh are also operating close to capacity. In contrast the digital network has recently been upgraded. Changing requirements, including in the health and education sectors, mean that existing estates must be adapted to meet the requirements of 21st century service delivery.

The Infrastructure Delivery Plan produced to inform this Local Plan sets out the issues in detail. The Infrastructure Delivery Plan highlights that some infrastructure provision is already near or exceeding capacity, this particularly applies to health and education facilities. It will therefore be essential that development is served by the necessary infrastructure by pursuing an infrastructure led approach, including the best use of existing assets. A list of potential projects from the IDP is listed in Appendix 4.

There has been a trend for several years towards centralisation and increasingly digitisation of service provision, both to improve the quality of services and reduce costs. This can however reduce accessibility to services for the most vulnerable. It is therefore important that new or replacement services are located in accessible locations, including the city’s retail/ commercial centres and, where appropriate, that existing facilities are safeguarded.

1. Infrastructure needed to support development must be phased appropriately with the delivery of residential and other development to ensure that capacity is provided, and impacts are satisfactorily mitigated in a timely manner through an ‘Infrastructure Led Approach’.
2. During the plan period the following strategic infrastructure will be required to support development identified in Strategic Policy SP2: Spatial Strategy, namely: 

• upgrades and capacity improvements to the highway network; 
• measures to facilitate sustainable transport;
• expansion of existing schools and the provision of new education facilities*. 
• healthcare and community facilities, including two new primary care facilities potentially within the City Centre and Shoeburyness;
• green space and recreation enhancement and provision;
• broadband telecoms; and
• utility improvements including flood prevention. 
  This has been informed by the preparation of a draft Infrastructure Delivery Plan (available on the local plan website).

3. The delivery of development must be aligned with the provision of necessary infrastructure and not place a damaging burden on existing infrastructure. 
4. The Council will use planning obligations with landowners and developers to secure direct provision or financial contributions towards infrastructure necessary to support the Local Plan, including both on-site and off-site provision, to address the cumulative impacts of development on supporting infrastructure.
5. The Council will review the Southend Community Infrastructure Levy to provide for infrastructure contributions that deliver both strategic and local infrastructure improvements.
6. In appropriate cases the Council will seek to use compulsory purchase powers in order to assemble land to enable key development schemes and/ or improvements to infrastructure to proceed.

* the provision of a new school may be required subject to further testing. Two potential sites have been identified, one within Prittlewell and the other in Shoeburyness (Site Proposal HEA141 and HEA137 - see Chapter 12)

Do you agree with draft Strategic Policies SP1 Spatial Principles; SP2 Spatial Strategy; and SP3 Securing and Improving Infrastructure? Please explain your answer with reference to relevant policy number.