The Regional Assembly today launched a major consultation looking at the kind of region we want our children to grow up in.

The consultation is part of a Review of the East Midlands Regional Plan. The Regional Plan provides the strategy within which local authorities’ planning documents and local transport plans are prepared and major investment decisions taken. It identifies the scale and distribution of new housing provision, and priorities for the environment, transport, infrastructure, economic development, agriculture, energy, minerals and waste treatment and disposal.

The review will look forward to the year 2031 and will focus on the relationship between housing, transport and climate change.

Councillor Jim Harker, Chair of the Assembly’s Joint Housing, Planning & Transport Joint Board said: “2031 seems like a long way away, but every child in primary school now will be looking for somewhere to live by then.

“Although there is a lot of economic uncertainty in the short term, I hope that people and organisations will use this consultation to tell us of their vision for the future. We are also keen to consider any new evidence that may shed light on the latest round of national population and household projections.” 

The consultation document includes a range of questions and alternative options, covering:

• long term housing provision; 
• affordable housing;
• housing needs of an ageing population;
• spatial options for development; 
• coastal flood risk issues; 
• transport priorities;
• renewable and ‘low carbon’ energy generation; and
• rock, sand and gravel extraction

The consultation document is contained on an electronic disk and is also available through the Regional Assembly’s website: www.emra.gov.uk/partial-review. The closing date for comments is Tuesday 6 October 2009. Comments can be made to the Regional Assembly via a special website: http://emra-consult.limehouse.co.uk/portal. 

A series of public seminars and workshops will be held around the East Midlands over the summer: 11 by the Regional Assembly and 11 by East Midlands Planning Aid, an independent charity and part of the Royal Town Planning Institute (RTPI). East Midlands Planning Aid will also be running a competition open to all young people (between the ages of 11 and 19) to create a model of what they would like their home town, city or village to look like in 2031. The prize is a weekend away at an outdoor adventure centre. For further details visit: www.eastmidlands-getinvolved.org.uk

After considering all the comments, the Assembly will submit a revised version of the Regional Plan to the Secretary of State for a further round of public consultation in March 2010. An independent ‘Examination in Public’ will follow later in 2010.