The UDP is important but it cannot solve all the problems facing the Borough. It is after all just a Land Use Plan. Issues such as education, law and order, health and social services will not be tackled directly by the new plan. However, it would be wrong to think that the new UDP will ignore these concerns. Increasingly, the Council is looking at better ways to coordinate its various services and activities.
The "Dudley Borough Agenda" is the Council's overall five year strategy. It sets out the principles and values that give the Council its focus and direction, highlights the key pressures the Borough faces and proposes key priorities for action.
Four themes have been identified that describe the range of issues that must be addressed:
Economic Vitality - fostering a climate in which jobs can be created, new skills promoted and developed and a diverse local economy sustained. The UDP could help by ensuring that a range of new sites are available which are well served for freight, within a quality environment while maintaining the economic base of the Borough. Opportunities also need to be considered that will diversify our economy such as tourism and provide land for new training opportunities.
Personal Well Being - providing services and opportunities that improve the quality of life local people enjoy, including their health and social care, their safety, their ability to exercise self determination and choice, achieve personal development and equal access to opportunities and services. The UDP could help achieve these objectives in a number of ways including planning effectively for new buildings, providing health and social care and extending the range and diversity of sport and recreational facilities for all sections of our community. The UDP also needs to encourage development that fosters safer communities that are accessible to all.
Lifetime Learning - lifetime learning enables people in the Borough, through access to education, learning and, in the broadest sense, cultural opportunities, to make choices in their lives, change and seize new opportunities as they arise. The UDP needs to ensure that land is made available in the right place at the right time for new development to meet these needs. The Borough's town centres must have an important role in this respect.
Environment - managing land and environmental issues to balance all needs, ensuring that people can have decent homes, creating opportunities for investment, achieving Local Agenda 21 targets and ensuring people have access to recreational opportunities. The UDP needs to take a balanced approach that ensures that land is made available to meet the needs of the Borough's people in a sustainable way.
The new UDP must play its part in delivering the Council's overall agenda. Although the contents of the UDP will be land and property based it will be inspired by the social and economic needs of the people of the Borough both now and in the future.
The existing UDP was published in November 1993. At the time the majority of people in the Borough were happy that it was guiding development in the right way. However, since 1993, some big changes have taken place. If they continue the existing UDP will soon be out of date and unhelpful. Some of the changes are:
- The continuing change in the condition of the Borough's Town Centres.
- New Government housing targets - and the need to meet housing needs.
- A greater concern for sustainable development and sustainable forms of transport.
- Increasing traffic congestion.
- New Government guidance on Town Planning.
- A growing awareness that there is a need to redouble our efforts to encourage investment in the Borough and improve our declining industrial areas.
- The need to encourage better quality development.
- The development of the Council's strategy called the Dudley Borough Agenda.
The Council needs to make sure that the UDP stays up to date and is relevant. We have already come to the conclusion that some parts of the UDP are out of date and that unless changes are made opportunities to help forge a more sustainable Borough will be lost.
If you want to know more about the limitations and successes of the existing UDP, please ask for copies of the UDP Monitoring Reports which are available from the Council's Planning and Leisure Department.
Before the Council starts making decisions on the content of the new UDP, nearly three months have been set aside so that people and groups in the Borough can make their views known. You can write to, telephone or meet with the Council's Planners during the rest of July, August and September.
These early documents relate to the preparation of the Dudley Unitary Development Plan and chart the stages and position of policy in the Plan at each stage of the review. They are intended for reference only and the content does not necessarily reflect the current state of play.
