Part 13: General Schedule 7: Plan making Section 15AA: Contents of joint spatial development strategy Effect
Setting out the permitted content of a joint SDS will ensure that they focus purely on strategic matters and not cover ground that is better suited to either local plans or national policy, and also reduce their size making them quicker to produce.
	Subsections (1) – (3) set out what a joint SDS must and may include.
	Subsection (5) also enables the Secretary of State to set out further in regulations any matters that a joint SDS may or must include.
	Subsection (4) sets out when a matter may be of strategic importance.
	Subsection (6) provides that a joint SDS must include whatever diagrams, illustrations etc that are prescribed in regulations as being required.
	Subsection (7) provides that different provisions can be made for different parts of the joint strategy area.
	Subsection (8) provides that a joint SDS must be designed to secure that the use and development of land in the joint strategy area contribute to the mitigation of, and adaptation to, climate change.
	Subsection (9) requires a joint SDS to take account of any local nature recovery strategy that relates to any part of the joint strategy area concerned.
	Subsection (10) sets out what a joint SDS cannot do, including requiring any land to have a particular planning designation nor identifying any specific sites for development. This does not prevent the joint SDS from identifying more generic areas which are suitable for or have capacity for development. A joint SDS cannot be contrary to or repeat any national development management policy.
Example (1): Identifying capacity for development (sections 15AA(9)
A joint SDS could identify a broad area for an approximate scale of development, such as, to the north-west of town x and the south of river y there is scope for new development of at least xx new homes, capacity of yy new jobs, and the provision of 2 new schools, a health facility, expansion of waste water treatment capacity and the provision of a new railway station.
The SDS could not however specify that, for example, the railway station will be on land bounded by features w,x,y, or shown on map z or that any specific piece of land was to be used or protected for a specific purpose.