Joint Working with Other Councils

Poole Harbour Recreation Supplementary Planning Document

The Borough of Poole and Purbeck District Council have prepared a draft supplementary planning document (SPD) to build upon and provide more detailed advice and guidance on policies in the Purbeck Local Plan Part 1, the emerging Purbeck Local Plan submission draft and Borough of Poole’s recently adopted local plan.

Some recreational activities (including dog walking and cycling) around Poole Harbour can cause disturbance to wading birds which live or visit the harbour and are protected under European law.  These recreational activities are connected with the people who live around the harbour. Further residential development in Poole and Purbeck, around the harbour, is likely to have an adverse effect on these protected habitats. The draft SPD sets out how the Borough of Poole and Purbeck District Council will mitigate the impact of development by taking a financial contribution and using this to provide wardening and other mitigation measures.

The joint public consultation on the draft SPD finished on Monday 4 March 2019. The draft SPD and further supporting information is available on the Bournemouth, Christchurch and Poole Council website. 

After considering all of the responses that were received, and deciding whether the draft SPD needs to be changed, officers will prepare a consultation report and final version of the SPD for consideration by the new Bournemouth, Christchurch and Poole Council and Dorset Council. Officers will keep websites updated with progress on the draft SPD.

Gypsy and Traveller Development Plan

Dorset councils, including Bournemouth and Poole, are now working together to prepare a Dorset-wide Gypsy and Traveller (including Travelling Showpeople) Joint Development Plan Document.

Joint Working Group for Crossways and Moreton

Dorset County Council, Purbeck District Council and West Dorset District Council established a Joint Working Group for Crossways and Moreton to allow discussion around cross-boundary planning issues in the Crossways/Moreton area.

The main purpose of the Working Group is to provide a forum for joint working, liaison and information sharing between local authorities and parish councils, and the Working Group does not have any decision making powers. View the terms of reference for the Joint Working Group.

Meeting Notes

You can read notes of the Joint Working Group meetings by clicking on the links in the table below. Please note that the meeting notes are prepared by officers as a summary of discussions at the meeting. The notes of each meeting are to be considered and confirmed at the next meeting of the Joint Working Group.

Monitoring Heathland

In summary:

• habitat regulations give very strict protection
• as the competent authority, we need to have certainty that impacts are resolved
• there is flexibility in how impacts are resolved - solutions must be carefully tailored to local circumstance
• monitoring is essential to provide early warning and be integrated with mitigation

Monitoring results are fed back to Natural England and planners and inform the Habitat Regulations Assessment work. Results suggest:

• housing levels have increased since 2007 but with some tail off in recent years
• bird numbers have fluctuated but mostly stayed stable (exception Dartford warblers)
• fire incidence has dropped
• visitor numbers seem to be increasing significantly on the green space sites that are monitored but not significantly so for heaths

Future monitoring needs to cover new green spaces provided as mitigation, such as Holme Lane, to provide early warning of any problems and ensure its working as intended.