Councillor Coker (Cabinet Member for Strategic Planning and Transport) introduced the item and highlighted the following points:

a)     The report sought formal approval for the final land requirements for The George Scheme which would enable the Council to progress with the necessary compulsory purchase order (CPO) and side road order to complete the project;

b)    The funding for the scheme was already in place;

c)     The goal was to reach an agreement with affected land owners through negotiation;

d)    The CPO was a last resort;

e)     The scheme would have a direct impact on a number of residents;

f)      Plymouth City Council had received representations from land owners opposing the CPO which had been distributed to Cabinet;

g)     After reviewing the scheme and producing further design work, four properties previously affected by the scheme had been removed and the amount of permanent land required for the scheme had been reduced by a further 21 properties;

h)    The decision Cabinet would come to in this meeting would be carefully considered to ensure that the Council were satisfied that the benefits of the scheme outweighed the interference of the land owned by third parties, and therefore justified the CPO to proceed;

i)      The benefits to the scheme included:

i) Transport improvements which would make a different to everyone who relied on the route, including local businesses, bus passengers, pedestrians and cyclists;

ii) More than 30,000 vehicles used Tavistock Road every day and it was regarded as a pinch point in the network; the scheme would help improve this;

iii) Journey times for buses and general traffic would be improved which would help improve bus service reliability;

iv) Pavements and cycle paths would be new and improved which would ensure the public considered alternative active and sustainable transport options;

j)      The scheme was a critical part of the programme to provide better links to and from the north of Plymouth as it grew and would complement the Derriford Hospital Interchange, the Derriford Hospital Transport Scheme and the Forder Valley Link Road;

k)     The scheme was part of the Council’s adapted Statutory Planning Framework for the city;

l)      The Joint Local Plan (JLP) identified the Northern Corridor as one of the three priority growth areas due to it’s potential to deliver a regionally significant number of new jobs and homes;

m)   The scheme would provide part of the critical infrastructure needed to deliver the new homes that had been identified for the Derriford and Northern Corridor growth area, around 2000 of which would be part of the Woolwell Urban Extension;

n)    The JLP delivering growth in Derriford and the Northern Corridor specifically supported the provision of the transport infrastructure and the scheme directly supported a number of other JLP policies.

Sally Farley (Strategic Transport Manager) added:

o)    The fourth recommendation delegated powers to Paul Barnard (Service Director for Strategic Planning and Infrastructure) the ability to negotiate and make minor amendments;

p)    The scheme had worked to ‘design out’ four land plots, altogether reducing  ...  view the full minutes text for item 140