Part One: Spatial Strategy and Policies (Regulation 19)

9.29. This policy provides for a sufficient stock of high-quality Strategic Employment Land suitable for a growing and diversified economy.

9.30. Strategic Employment Areas (SEAs) are high-quality employment areas that are considered essential to the long-term success of the Dudley's economy. They correspond to areas of the strongest occupier and market demand and are of high environmental quality with good links to the Strategic Highway Network and should be protected from non-employment uses that could impact upon their viability as employment locations. These areas contain, or have the potential to attract, those knowledge-based growth sector businesses whose success will be critical to the delivery of Dudley's economic ambitions.

9.31. Policy DLP19 is based on the approach set out in the 2011 Black Country Core Strategy, which distinguished between Strategic High-Quality Employment Areas and Local Employment Areas. The Strategic Employment Areas in the DLP are the equivalent of the (existing and potential) Strategic High-Quality Employment Areas in the Core Strategy. The EDNA recommended that the approach set out in the Core Strategy has served the Black Country well and subject to some refinement, should be carried forward into the BCA's development plans, such as the DLP.

9.32. The characteristics and extent of the Strategic Employment Areas reflect the findings of the Black Country Employment Area Review (BEAR). The BEAR re-examined the totality of the Black Country's employment areas against a set of criteria based on those set out in the Core Strategy and the recommendations of the EDNA.

9.33. The key characteristics of Strategic Employment Areas are as follows:

9.34. The majority of the Strategic Employment Areas, as designated on the Policies Map, satisfy all these characteristics or are considered capable of acquiring them. The BEAR has found that it is not always necessary for an area to display all these characteristics to attract high-quality development. For example, the Pensnett Trading Estate, where the market has delivered high-quality investment, despite the area being some distance from the motorway network.

9.35. The Plan seeks to safeguard land and premises within Strategic Employment Areas for industrial and logistics activity and supports proposals that involve the improvement and renewal of land and premises within them. However, some small-scale ancillary uses will be supported in Strategic Employment Areas where this meets the day-to-day needs of employees of businesses within the Strategic Employment Areas. While Policy DLP19 considers development for uses that are not within an industrial employment use class, these will only be supported in exceptional circumstances as it is the Council's intention to safeguard Strategic Employment Areas from non-manufacturing / logistics uses.