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Local Plan Review

Chapters in this topic

  1. Introduction to the local plan review
  2. Gathering evidence
  3. Public consultation
  4. Draft plan
  5. Examination and adoption

Introduction to the local plan review

The Government requires all Councils to revisit their Local Plans every five years and we are in the process of reviewing the current Swale Local Plan (Bearing Fruits), which was adopted in July 2017. The Local Plan Review will set out the planning framework for the borough for the period to 2038 and will cover issues such as; housing provision, the economy, retail and town centres; infrastructure provision and the environment. It will also set out policies by which planning applications will be determined, in addition to allocation land for housing, employment and other uses.

Public consultation

Issues and Preferred Options Consultation now Closed.

To help us prepare a draft plan we invited your views on development strategy options and possible policy approaches. The Issues and Preferred Options consultation closed at 5pm on the 29 November 2021.

To view the consultation documents, please visit our consultation page.

Local Plan Timetable

Our current timetable for preparing the Local Plan covering 2020-2023 is set out in a Local Development Scheme.

Five Year Housing Land Supply Statement

In January 2021, as part of the work undertaken to support the local Plan review and ongoing monitoring work, the Council believed it had achieved a housing land supply of 5 years. This was shared with the Planning Committee in its February meeting and the data was also presented to the Planning Inspectorate with regards to a planning appeal.  The calculation was shared with the appellant and other parties to the appeal.  The information was scrutinised in detail by the appellant and they provided detailed comments challenging certain assumptions in the calculation and also the robustness of the calculation itself. Officers rebut a number of their points, but in reviewing their comments and looking again at the work undertaken it transpires that unfortunately there has been some double counting.  As a result of this administrative error, the Council has had to revise the data and the position is that the Council in fact has a HLS of 4.6 years as opposed to the 5 years previously advised.  We do not consider there are any immediate implications for progressing the Local Plan Review or regarding any recent decisions made by the Planning Committee or through officer delegation. This table (525KB PDF) sets out the key figures that explain the current position.

Statement of Community Involvement

Our adopted Statement of Community Involvement sets out how we are going to consult and engage you. There will be various opportunities for you to get involved and over time we will be expanding our website to include these further activities and any evidence that we will have completed.

In February 2021 we published an addendum to the Statement of Community Involvement to reflect the Covid 19 Pandemic situation. More information can be found on the Statement of Community Involvement page.

Related documents

Next Gathering evidence