[3.02.01] The spatial strategy will set out the level and type of development that is appropriate for different places, and encourages more sustainable living and working patterns by reducing unnecessary travel and avoiding sporadic development in the open countryside.
To increase the resilience of the Lake District to all types of flood events, including river, surface water and coastal flooding.
[3.02.02] The distinctive settlement character comprising hamlets, villages and small towns is a Special Quality of the Lake District. The traditional settlement pattern has evolved over centuries and has been influenced by topography. Many of our settlements have developed strong links between one another. Larger towns outside the Lake District provide access to higher tier services, such as hospitals and large retail outlets. Much of the Lake District is classed as being ‘in a sparse setting’ and 99.4 per cent is defined as open countryside.
[3.02.03] The 'Core Strategy (Local Plan Part One)' first identified the 13 Rural Service Centres and 21 Villages set out in this Policy, and this Local Plan continues that approach. Whilst the scale and extent of development in the Lake District should be limited, the Rural Service Centres and Villages provide the locations for the majority of housing, employment and retail development within the Lake District, and to a lesser extent the cluster communities (see table in Policy 02).
[3.02.04] The limited environmental capacity for new development within the Lake District is a significant issue as highlighted by the Landscape Capacity Study (April 2017) and flooding data (Strategic Flood Risk Assessment 2018). This reinforces the long used assertion that the Lake District has limited development opportunities. Although many of our larger settlements are reaching their natural development capacity as dictated to by physical and environmental limitations, there remains a need for certain types of development to support and maintain the viability, sustainability and resilience of our local communities, particularly affordable housing.
[3.02.05] The Local Plan is not required to facilitate a large quantity of development; its focus is on the management of the Lake District in accordance with its statutory purposes and duty, and on meeting the needs of its communities.
[3.02.06] The spatial strategy reflects the traditional settlement pattern and allows a measure of dispersal across the Lake District’s most sustainable settlements, whilst also ensuring a degree of flexibility to avoid the over-concentration of development in those settlements with limited development capacity.
[3.02.07] We wish to maximise development opportunities by requiring developments in Rural Service Centre and/or Village locations to utilise the site efficiently, and by ensuring the proposal contributes towards meeting identified local needs as fully and as reasonably possible and within the limitations of the site. For example, if the identified housing need in the locality is largely for three bed family homes and the site can reasonably deliver five dwellings of this size and type, that is our default position, we would not consider a proposal for a single six bed dwelling in these instances. We are supportive of using previously-developed land for new development.
[3.02.08] Residential gardens in built up areas are classed as 'greenfield' on which development should be resisted, however we recognise that many such sites can potentially make a modest but significant contribution towards meeting the identified housing need in the local community. Residential gardens are often within the natural limits of a settlement and they do not share the same characteristics or intrinsic value as the open countryside. As such, development opportunities on residential gardens to meet an identified local need is supported in principle in Cluster Communities. Development must be of a scale that is sympathetic to the role of the settlement and respect its appearance and physical capacity. We will take environmental constraints and pressures into account, and also consider infrastructure requirements and limitations.
[3.02.09] To help define which settlements we consider are Cluster Communities, these settlements should have two or more local services or community facilities, such as public houses, community halls and places of worship or have easy access to such services in an adjacent Village or Rural Service Centre.
[3.02.10] Rural Service Centres are defined as the following settlements - Ambleside, Backbarrow/Haverthwaite, Bootle, Bowness and Windermere, Broughton in Furness, Caldbeck, Coniston, Glenridding/Patterdale, Gosforth, Grasmere, Hawkshead, Keswick and Staveley.
[3.02.11] Villages are defined as the following settlements - Askham, Bampton/Bampton Grange, Bassenthwaite; Braithwaite, Chapel Stile/Elterwater, Crosthwaite, Embleton, Ennerdale Bridge, Eskdale Green, Lane End (Waberthwaite), Lindale, High/Low Lorton, Penruddock, Pooley Bridge, Portinscale, Ravenglass, Rosthwaite/Stonethwaite, Silecroft, Threlkeld, Troutbeck/Troutbeck Bridge, and Witherslack.
