Jam was commissioned as a ‘critical friend’ to assist the Council in the preparation of the Sustainability Appraisal for its Local Plan.  The role has included the review of officers’ work during the Local Plan process to check that the SA meets the necessary regulations and guidance and ensure a robust assessment.  To date Jam’s input has included:

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• Training of staff via workshops and review of work to ensure staff awareness of the requirements of the SA process and regulations, recent case law, examples of good and bad practice and common pitfalls.

• Assistance with the preparation of the Scoping Report to ensure that the baseline data was as complete as possible.

• Review of the SA Framework, including the appropriateness of Sustainability Objectives, Decision Making Criteria and Sustainability Indicators.  The Sustainability Indicators will be used to monitor the performance of the Plan.

• Review of consultation responses from Statutory Consultees, the local community and other stakeholders and necessary updates to the Scoping Report.

• Review of policies and consideration of reasonable alternatives, including the spatial options for the Plan.

• Preparation of matrices to assess policies and sites and review of officers’ assessments.

• Drafting the Regulation 18 SA reports.

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​Following the conclusion of the Regulation 18 stage of the Local Plan the Council has commissioned Jam to prepare the next stages of the SA for the remainder of the Local Plan process.