The Council has given its response to the East Lindsey District Council consultation on the Local Plan and is as follows:
We consider the Plan to be flawed.
Our first concern is that on page 358 of the Development Plan it mentions the A153. This road is between Sleaford and Horncastle and has no link to the Ingoldmells area whatsoever. If the District Council cannot get a road number correct, it must beg the question can there be confidence in all the numerous statistical facts and figures being included throughout the documentation.
The report suggests "inland only open for business". It is the coastal economy that provides 50% of the total one billion pound revenue to the whole County, Ingoldmells being the largest contributor. We should therefore be encouraged to continue to do so.
The Lincolnshire Tourism Coast contributes £528 million pound per annum to the Lincolnshire economy - 50% of the Tourism total.
The LEP's strategic economic plan underlines the requirement to boost the coastal economy and to double that contribution. The Leader of the District Council's signature is on this document. The Local Plan undermines the SEP and produces no evidence whatsoever, to inform how the District Council will contribute to the growing economy requirement in the SEP.
Evidence base is not supported by any real or meaningful local evidence. We therefore question where the Tourism is and season evidence locally generated from Business.
The Parish Council considers the Plan not to be developed in partnership with the local communities but imposed by a top down unresponsive Local Authority.
The Parish Council furthermore considers the District Councils method of spatial planning to be questionable due to the fact that this framework has been designed in order to promote community involvement and cohesion however, the overall aims of this Plan have been rejected by the community as being "unfit for purpose" and detrimental to the prosperity of our area.
The vision of the District Council for growing the economy and business sector for the coast is not represented by the policies.
Our reasons are as follows:
The limitation of the length of season, which is not all year round as stated in the documentation (page 77) actually encourages stagnation of the economy during the winter months, which in turn does not encourage investment and limits the income of business, which in turn effects employment and training opportunities as already highlighted by the report commissioned by the District Council to Warwick University on the Coast Skills Audit 2010.
The building of affordable new market housing is imperative in supporting the prosperity of the coast because it will attract future key workers.
Ruling out new market housing will discourage new business investment and send out the message to utility companies that we are "not open for business" so infrastructure/utility services development will cease.
To discourage business development on the eastern side of the A52 between Ingoldmells and Chapel St Leonards is not strategically viable and we would strongly argue the point that since the surrounding area is already developed with businesses providing amenities to both the local community and visitors this area should be included.(page 84 refers).
We would also strongly argue that the eastern side of the A52 should be a restricted zone for future business development only and that the western side of the A52 a restricted zone for future new housing development only.
The flood map is a "worst case scenario" and is contradictory to the report on the 2013 "East Coast Tidal Surge" produced by the Environment Agency in 2014. This report concluded that during the 2013 floods the area most affected was Boston and over 99.98% of our defences held and protected the communities at risk. Additionally the "East Coast Tidal Surge" report, produced by the Lincolnshire Resiliance Forum in 2014 argues that we were better protected than ever before.
Using flood risk as a reason for not developing the coastal area has shown to be inconsistent with the above reports and goes against the wishes of the community to bring economic growth to the area.