Deposit Plan

9 Productive and Enterprising Places Comment

Employment Comment

9.1The national strategy ‘Prosperity for All: economic action plan’, prepared by Welsh Government, sets out a clear statement of intent to build an economy on strong foundations, to develop Wales’ industries of the future and empower all the regions to become more productive.

9.2In seeking to support the national strategy, PPW requires local planning authorities to encourage and support developments which generate economic prosperity and regeneration. This is to be enabled through development proposals that contribute toward building a strong, responsive and competitive economy. As such local planning authorities must ensure that sufficient land of the right type is available in the right places and at the right time to support growth and innovation.

9.3The County Borough is located within the Cardiff Capital Region City Deal (CCRCD) area. In economic terms the CCRCD seeks:

• To deliver a 5% uplift in the GVA for the region,
• To create up to 25,000 new jobs in the region.

9.4The 2RLDP has acknowledged and reflected this as part of its underlying strategy, by seeking a level of growth that will deliver an economically active population to bring about a potential increase in jobs commensurate to the CCR ambitions. To do this the 2RLDP will need to identify land for employment development that will assist in addressing economic pressures and take into account the resilience of its existing, economic base.

9.5In order to support the local economy, 40.3ha of land is allocated for new employment-related development. This involves the provision of a range of employment sites across the County Borough. The plan allocates and protects a range of employment sites that cater for a wide- range of employment uses. To facilitate this the policy sets out three categories of employment sites. The categories of site incorporate a degree of flexibility (see Policy EM3: Use Class Restrictions – Business and Industry) in terms of the range of permissible uses across the portfolio of allocated land.

9.6The above policies categorise employment sites to ensure that the appropriate employment uses are focussed to the right employment sites. This seeks to ensure effective management of employment growth and development throughout the County Borough, delivering the anticipated employment growth and meeting national and regional growth ambitions. The categorisation applies to both proposed and existing employment sites and proposals for uses as referred to below and indicated by the relevant categorisation (e.g. Use Class B1 only for Business Parks).

9.7Industrial estates within the County Borough comprise businesses that are categorised within use classes B1, B2 and B8 of the Town and Country Planning Use Classes Order, although there are also examples of ’unique uses’ and, to a very limited extent, other non-class B uses on a number of sites. Every site allocated or safeguarded for class B2 use is considered suitable, in principle, for the location of in-building waste management facilities.

9.8Examples of appropriate ’unique uses’ would include builders’ merchants, freight contractors’ yards, vehicle depots and taxi control offices. Examples of commercial services unrelated to class B use which might be considered acceptable on secondary employment sites include indoor fitness and play facilities, day nurseries, and commercial vehicle repair and maintenance businesses. The examples given are not intended to constitute an exhaustive list and each proposal will be considered on its merits although, generally, A1 (retail) uses would not be considered acceptable. Proposals for such uses will be considered against the sequential test for commercial development and the ’Town Centre First’ approach set out in Policy 6 of Future Wales and in PPW.

9.9TAN 23: Economic Development requires the inclusion of a criteria-based policy to control the release of non-class B uses on employment sites. While policy EM3 adopts a flexible approach by setting out the range of permissible uses on identified sites in accordance with the categorisation specified, there are instances where proposals will come forward for uses outside of this range. It is recognised that the policy framework needs to be sufficiently flexible to take account of changing economic conditions and allow for the release of employment land in very limited circumstances. Therefore, it is considered appropriate for such proposals to be required to demonstrate that such economic conditions have been satisfied before being considered acceptable. In respect of the second criterion, it is considered that sites/premises should be marketed for a period of not less than six months.

9.10Future Wales Policy 6 - Town Centre First requires that new commercial, retail and community-orientated facilities of a significant scale must be located within town centres, with this approach also being encouraged for smaller schemes. Consequently, this policy will be applied within this context, and proposals for such uses will be considered against the sequential test for commercial development set out in national policy.

Tourism and the Visitor Economy Comment

9.11In addition to increasing the employment base the 2RLDP will also seek to expand and enhance the town centre and visitor offer to assist in generating economic growth for the County Borough. Tourism makes an important contribution to the local economy. Regeneration activities are focussing on the enhancement of tourism generally, along with widening and encouraging tourist related activities and the development of visitor accommodation. A key element in delivering an improved visitor offer is increasing accessibility through sustainable transport, including metro improvements and local active improvements which link tourist assets together.

9.12Tourism is a vital contributor to Caerphilly’s economy and cultural identity, offering opportunities for regeneration, job creation, and community well-being. The County Borough boasts significant heritage assets such as Caerphilly Castle, historic landscapes, and natural attractions like Cwmcarn Forest, which collectively underpin its visitor economy. However, unmanaged tourist growth could lead to adverse environmental impact, increased pressures on infrastructure, loss of character and negative impacts on community well-being and placemaking.

9.13To deliver this, the 2RLDP promotes a sustainable approach to tourism development, ensuring that growth aligns with placemaking principles, climate resilience and community well-being. The plan aims to maximise economic and social benefits while minimising environmental harm, ensuring that Caerphilly remains an attractive, resilient and sustainable destination for future generations.

9.14To deliver sustainable tourism growth the 2RLDP seeks to maximise opportunities for improving and co-ordinating the range of tourist accommodation, facilities and attractions in the County Borough. This policy seeks to encourage tourism related development, which increases the range of activities available to visitors in appropriate locations, whilst resisting development proposals that could result in adverse impacts.

9.15Tourism development projects are an important part of the regeneration of the Town Centres in the County Borough. The Council has prepared regeneration plans for its centres and tourist related development is a key part of these. Where proposals are proposed in Town Centres, they should positively contribute towards both broadening the visitor offer and positively contributing toward the night-time economy where appropriate.

9.16This policy seeks to retain existing tourist facilities to maintain the tourism variety and choice in the County Borough. The loss of a tourist facility to another use would only be acceptable where it can be demonstrated that the facility is no longer suitable or viable for tourism use, and its loss would not adversely affect the range and quality of tourism facilities available within the locality and the County Borough. To support an application for the change of use from a tourist facility the developer would need to provide the following information as part of a planning application:

• The length of time a facility has been vacant and the reasons why it is vacant, such as
  • Patronage information
  • Customer preferences
  • Occupancy rates (for tourist accommodation)
• Details demonstrating that the site has been marketed for tourism use at a reasonable price for an appropriate period
• The suitability of the building for an appropriate tourist use.

9.17Caerphilly Castle and Cwmcarn Forest are the principal tourist attractions in the County Borough, and it is essential that their tourist use be protected.

9.18Caerphilly Castle is one of Wales’s most iconic heritage landmarks and the largest castle in Wales. It is a major draw for domestic and international visitors and plays a central role in the County Borough’s cultural identity and tourism economy, supporting the regeneration of Caerphilly town and contributing to placemaking objectives by anchoring Caerphilly town as a vibrant commercial and cultural hub, contributing to local businesses and the night-time economy. Cadw, who own the castle, have invested £10mto deliver significant improvements to the Castle as part of their proposal to make the castle a national designation for tourists. These improvements include:

• Construction of a new visitor centre featuring a café, toilets, shop, and educational space.
• Restoration of the Great Hall (medieval banqueting hall),
• Refurbishment of the Inner East Gatehouse (new roof and windows),
• Reopening of the medieval watergate access channel.
• Wider access paths, ramps, and underfloor heating in key visitor areas.
• Installation of comprehensive interpretation and interactive exhibits, digital displays, audio-visual storytelling, and a wildflower garden.

9.19Cwmcarn Forest is a premier outdoor recreation destination offering mountain biking, hiking, and nature trails. It is integral to the County Borough’s active tourism and promotes health and well-being through outdoor activity and supports sustainable tourism by encouraging active travel and eco-friendly experiences. The forest complements heritage tourism by diversifying the visitor offer, attracting adventure tourists and families, and contributing to rural economic development.

Digital Infrastructure Comment

9.20Digital infrastructure is a critical component of productive and enterprising places, underpinning economic growth, social connectivity and access to services in an increasingly digital society. Electronic communications is an essential infrastructure and planning authorities should support high‑quality digital networks, such as broadband and mobile connectivity, to ensure that homes, businesses and communities are well‑connected and resilient to future technological demands.

9.21Adequate and efficient telecommunications and digital technology infrastructure is increasingly crucial for economic, social and environmental sustainability. Secure electronic communications underpin economic competitiveness and can provide opportunities for households and businesses to achieve socially and environmentally desirable ways of living and working. Future Wales outlines how digital communications infrastructure is vital to the future success and economic competitiveness of businesses and supports the provision of digital communications infrastructure and services across Wales and requires new developments to include the provision of high-speed broadband infrastructure from the outset.

9.22This policy supports telecommunications infrastructure development where it is required, whilst safeguarding against any adverse impacts on residential amenity, natural and built heritage assets, sensitive landscapes and other environmental designations. Developers should proactively engage with owners or operators of sensitive uses (such as hospitals, childcare facilities or educational establishments) early in the development process to discuss any technical or other amenity issues that may arise as a result of the development.

Energy and Decarbonisation Comment

9.23The 2RLDP promotes sustainable economic growth to assist in delivering economic growth in line with the plan’s strategy and the aspirations of the CCR. Decarbonisation is essential in addressing climate change and the planning system is an important vehicle for delivering this. The 2RLDP will need to support the following strategic decarbonisation goals if it is to deliver sustainable growth for the County Borough:

• Strategic Placemaking;
• Promotion of renewable energy generation and use;
• Reducing and restricting the use of fossil fuels;
• Promoting modal shift and prioritising active travel and sustainable transport.

9.24Growth across the County Borough will require energy and the 2RLDP seeks to promote renewable and zero carbon energy generation within the County Borough to assist in delivering decarbonisation.

Renewable Energy Targets Comment

9.25PPW requires local authorities to identify challenging but achievable targets for renewable energy within the local development plan.

9.26The Welsh Government’s Practice Guidance: Planning for Renewable and Low Carbon Energy – A Toolkit for Planners (Sept 2015) is advocated within PPW as an acceptable methodology for developing an evidence base to inform spatially based renewable energy policies and allocations for inclusion in the 2RLDP. A Renewable and Low Carbon Energy Assessment (RLCEA) was prepared by the Carbon Trust in 2020. This assesses the current capacity for renewable energy within the county borough and the potential renewable energy capacity for the future as well as theoretical capacities for renewable energy generation.

9.27The Caerphilly Local Area Energy Plan (LAEP) sets out to achieve ‘Net Zero’ carbon emissions by 2050. It collates evidence to identify the most effective route for the authority to reach a net-zero target, in line with national renewable energy generation targets.

9.28Using the LAEP, the RLCEA and other evidence, as detailed in evidence base paper EB24: Renewable Energy a measurable target has been calculated from the resource potential of the area. Table 2 identifies the renewable energy target for the 2RLDP.

Table 2 Renewable Energy Target

9.29Future Wales requires Council’s to be proactive in delivering renewable energy generation and identifies Pre-Assessed Areas throughout Wales where large-scale wind energy is, in principle, acceptable and where the principle of landscape change is accepted. On a more local scale the Council will support and encourage appropriate schemes for renewable energy generation and will also work together with energy providers to deliver appropriate schemes.

9.30To further promote energy efficiency, PPW requires applications for major development to be accompanied by an Energy Report.

9.31The Council will require applications that meet the provisions of this policy to be accompanied by an 'Energy Report'. The assessment will be required to set out how the proposal can make a contribution towards increased levels of energy generation from renewable and low carbon sources and whether or not any connections can be made to existing sources of renewable energy.

Minerals Comment

9.32The 2RLDP, in accordance with national and regional policy requirements, encourages a sustainable approach to minerals planning, ensuring that valuable, finite resources are safeguarded for possible, future extraction whilst requiring that proposals take account of environmental and amenity considerations and seek to avoid significant adverse impacts, including through the use of appropriate restoration and aftercare measures.

9.33Whilst Future Wales identifies minerals as a policy area to be addressed through the preparation of the SDP, PPW and MTAN1 require that the 2RLDP maintains a 10-year land bank for crushed rock (the County Borough has no history of land-based sand and gravel production) throughout the plan period.

9.34To facilitate this, MTAN 1 requires the preparation of Regional Technical Statements (RTS). The RTS 2nd Review was published in September 2020 and was endorsed by the Council in January 2021. It identified a total apportionment for the County Borough over 25 years of 13.37 mt (million tonnes), representing a surplus of 17.91 mt in permitted reserves. At the time of publication, the County Borough had a landbank of 58.5 years, greatly in excess of the minimum ten-year requirement.

9.35In accordance with the recommendations set out in the RTS 2^nd Review, no future provision for primary aggregates, including allocations for future working, have been identified within the 2RLDP. However, the minerals industry remains active in the County Borough with limestone and sandstone continuing to be worked at different sites. Minerals are an important resource which should be protected for future generations in appropriate areas. Policy MN2 sets out the criteria against which all proposals for new mineral working will be assessed and adheres to the requirements of national policy.

9.36Safeguarding areas for limestone, sandstone (including high specification aggregate) and sand and gravel are delineated on the proposals map, in accordance with the Aggregates Safeguarding Map of South East Wales.

9.37It is important that access to mineral resources is safeguarded in order to prevent sterilisation by other forms of permanent development. Safeguarding does not indicate an acceptance of mineral working, but that the location and quality of the mineral is known and that the environmental constraints associated with extraction have been considered.

9.38Buffer zones provide areas of protection around permitted and proposed mineral workings where further mineral development, as well as new development which would be sensitive to adverse impact including residential, hospitals and schools, should be resisted. Other development which may be less sensitive, including industrial, office and ancillary uses related to mineral working, may be considered acceptable on a case-by-case basis.

9.39Buffer zones of 200m (as required by MTAN 1 in the case of hard rock quarries) have been drawn around active, inactive and dormant sites and are delineated on the proposals map. While dormant sites may retain extant planning permissions due to previous extraction, working cannot resume at those sites without the application of full, modern conditions. In some cases, there may be no prospect of future working, and the Council will consider appropriate strategies for future use and restoration.

9.40This policy seeks to introduce measures to prevent further extraction of minerals at sites that are inactive and mineral working is no longer considered appropriate at these locations. This approach accords with national policy, which states that inactive sites with planning permission for future working which are considered unlikely to be reactivated for the foreseeable future should be identified in the development plan and should be subject to a suitable strategy.

9.41In order to identify such sites, the Council is working with landowners/operators to determine future use on dormant sites. Where sites are identified as being inactive the Council will seek measures to prevent further extraction and to secure restoration and landscaping to eliminate any doubt over possible reworking. Such measures may include mechanisms such as prohibition orders.

Waste Management Comment

9.42Future Wales recognises waste as a policy area requiring a co-ordinated framework through the preparation of an SDP. In the meantime, regional monitoring arrangements inform the preparation of SDPs.

9.43While no specific need for waste management facilities has been identified at a regional level, local authorities are required to develop a sustainable approach to waste management, including the identification of suitable locations for waste management facilities as well as criteria by which applications for such development will be determined, recognising that the most appropriate locations will be those with the least adverse impact on the local population and the environment and with the most potential to contribute to a broad infrastructure framework.

9.44Towards Zero Waste sets out the Welsh Government’s high-level policies, targets and principles with respect to waste management. In order to comply with the Waste Framework Directive, the following waste hierarchy is applied as a priority order in waste prevention and management legislation and policy:

• Prevention;
• Preparation for reuse;
• Recycling;
• Other recovery e.g. energy recovery; and
• Disposal.

9.45National planning policy requires LDPs to make provision for a diverse waste management infrastructure and ensure that suitable locations are identified for such facilities. Criteria-based policies against which applications for such facilities will be determined should also be included. The pattern and nature of provision should reflect not only national waste policy, but also the up-to-date position as set out in the waste planning monitoring report. LDPs should, in principle, support the aspirations of Towards Zero Waste.

9.46Development, and development plans, should adhere to the principles of the circular economy. This should include promoting reuse; designing out waste; making adaptable design choices; and incorporating recycling facilities into development. The strategic policy set out above adheres to national planning and waste management policy and is designed to frame the context for the criteria-based policy below.

9.47TAN 21: Waste notes that existing industrial estates, in general terms, are likely to be suitable for modern, in-building waste management facilities due to their similarity in nature and external appearance to industrial buildings and processes. Notwithstanding this, proposals will need to be assessed in terms of their potential impact on environmental and amenity considerations, particularly with regard to neighbouring land uses. National policy requires waste planning assessments to be undertaken and submitted along with planning applications, in order to demonstrate how proposals meet the overriding objectives of Towards Zero Waste and the Collections Infrastructure and Markets (CIM) Sector Plan.

9.48Whilst new in-building waste management facilities are considered acceptable, in principle, on primary and secondary employment sites, it is considered that allowing for the identification of potentially suitable sites elsewhere, where dependent on need, while also ensuring that relevant proposals are appropriately assessed and deemed to be sustainably located in relation to other forms of development and more peripheral locations, is beneficial. TAN 21 requires that waste planning assessments are undertaken and submitted along with planning applications, in order to demonstrate how proposals meet the overriding objectives of Towards Zero Waste and the CIM Sector Plan.