Local Plan Review

Introduction to the local plan review

Consultation now closed (8th February 2021 to 30th April 2021)

The Government requires all Councils to revisit their Local Plans every five years. We are now consulting on the Local Plan Review (Regulation 19)  Pre-submission document. Please click the link to find out more.

Sustainability Appraisal

The Sustainability Appraisal (SA) is an integral part of local plan preparation.  It provides the evidence to inform, and the framework to develop and test options, including exploring options (or ‘growth scenarios’).

These are:

• SA Scoping Report (December 2018)
• SA report [PDF 9.5MB]
• SA  non-technical summary [PDF 2.1MB]
• SA technical appendix [PDF 1MB]

Our current programme 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.

Please note, an addendum has been made 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.