DCLG publishes results of Ebbsfleet development corporation consultation

UK chancellor George Osborne announced plans to create a 15,000-home garden city at Ebbsfleet in a statement last March . Osborne committed to provide £200 million in government funding for infrastructure in the area and opened a consultation in August into the creation of an urban development corporation to co-ordinate development.

In a response to the consultation (29-page / 2.1 MB PDF), published in late December, the DCLG confirmed that the UK government intends to establish a development corporation for Ebbsfleet in the first half of 2015. It will then bring forward secondary legislation to transfer powers to the new corporation to determine planning applications in the area and to enter and purchase land on a compulsory basis, the document said.

Although respondents had recommended a number of changes to the proposed boundary of the development corporation, the DCLG said that only minor alterations would be made to the boundary. These included the exclusion of the jetty and wharf at Robyn's Wharf and residential properties within the boundary of College Lodge and College Road.

The DCLG said it considered eleven board members to be "the right maximum size" for the corporation's board, although it expected operations to commence with fewer members. It acknowledged suggestions to expand board membership to include local community and business representatives and other bodies with local interests, but said that membership would be restricted to "individuals with the specific skills and experience necessary to oversee an organisation responsible for bringing forward a large scale development".

In response to concerns relating to the accountability of the new corporation, the government noted that elected members of the relevant local authorities would sit on its board and that its decision making process would be "fundamentally the same as it would be if local authorities were still determining the planning applications".

The DCLG added that the corporation's planning committee meetings would be held in public and that its planning decisions would have to be taken in accordance with local development plans. It said that rights to enter land would be subject to "checks and balances, including serving 28 days' prior notice" and that compulsory purchase orders "are not used lightly and may be required only rarely".

The response said the UK government would undertake reviews of transport provision, health service demands and educational demands in the area in order to ensure that infrastructure needs were fully understood and could be addressed. It said that the relevant local authorities would retain responsibility for allocations of social housing and that the development corporation would "work with the local authorities to ensure a suitable mix and type [of social housing provision]".