A number of people have told us they are finding it difficult to respond to the Leeds Site Allocation Plan consultation and have asked for advice on how to do it. Responses need to be with Leeds City Council by 5pm on 16th February 2021. You can respond in two ways

1. Use the LCC Response Form provided
2. Write an email comment to sap@leeds.gov.uk

There are three courses of action that Leeds have evaluated for the SAP modifications following the High Court Judgement on the Leeds Green Belt sites. You will find these below and in the Background Paper on Page 4. The Council have carried out a Sustainability Analysis on all three options which you will find in the Sustainability Appraisal Addendum, Appendix 4, page 130.

Option 1: Propose all 37 Green Belt sites as allocations in the SAP.
This would require no Main Modifications to the SAP in respect of the Green Belt sites and the Inspector would be required to examine whether allocating the sites and removing them from the Green Belt is sound.
Option 2: Propose none of the 37 Green Belt sites as allocations in the SAP and retain them all as Green Belt. This would require 37 Main Modifications to the SAP, one for each Green Belt site.
Option 3: Propose some of the Green Belt sites as allocations in the SAP on the basis that they would help address housing shortfalls within individual Housing Market Characteristic Areas (This option would retain some of the allocations, namely those in Aireborough, East, North, Outer North East, Outer South, Outer South East and Outer South West).

The council are recommending Option 2 and this is what the Proposed Main Modifications to the SAP are saying. If you agree with Option 2 then you need to say so by listing the modification number(s) for the Aireborough site or sites you agree with ( Modification 1, 2, 3, or 4) and then say why.

To help, the Aireborough Neighbourhood Forum has done a sustainability analysis (SA) of our own on the four Aireborough sites using the evidence in the neighbourhood plan evidence base which so many of you have contributed too over the last few years. We too agree with Option 2 based on this, however, because of the nature and character of Aireborough and our specific housing needs then Option 2 has greater and more significant benefits than the Leeds Sustainability Analysis shows. This is because the Leeds SA is for all the 37 Green Belt sites together which averages out some of the factors making them neutral. We have used the same methodology for the Aireborough SA as Leeds outline in their Sustainability Appraisal Addemdum page 9-12.

With this in mind, we have prepared an example of a response, using the SA information which may help you with your own response. We do encourage you to send in a response, it is very important.

You will find an example response form here

You will find the Aireborough Sustainability Analysis overview compared with the Leeds SA here.