Local Plan Update Published

Work on a plan which will help control and steer the long-term development of the District for up to 20 years is continuing whilst taking into account new planning regulations.

Officers are pushing ahead with progressing the District Local Plan by publishing summaries of the 8000 feedback responses collated during the consultation carried out from June to October last year.

Bromsgrove District Council’s Strategic Planning Team is also preparing a timetable of actions to progress the Local Plan. This will be considered at a meeting of full Council on 20th May.

Here the notice of commencement and the plan timetable will be proposed to be determined along with the next steps which includes consideration of scoping consultation work. This meeting won’t be considering possible development sites or new planning policies.

A new Local Plan is required to be in place to provide more local direction.

At the moment the Council has to heavily rely on national policy from Government to determine planning applications for housing developments.

National planning rules, give significant importance to providing more houses across the country which can act to encourage developers to submit planning applications for consideration.

District Councillor Sue Baxter, Cabinet member for Planning, said: “Like many Councils across the country, we currently cannot show that we have enough approved land to meet national housing targets for the next five years.

“So these moves to progress our Local Plan are most welcome and we will continue to share these with residents.

“In the meantime the Council remains committed to protecting local communities and the environment, ensuring new development is sustainable and supported by infrastructure and making fair and transparent planning decisions.”

As part of plan making the Council continues evidence gathering including a revised assessment of the green belt. They are also further considering the impact of development with infrastructure in mind including the environment and capacity of roads, schools, health services.

Once the timetable for the Local Plan has been agreed and published the next stage is the production of a scoping document that will be put out for consultation giving residents, stakeholders and businesses further chance to engage

The summaries of the feedback from last year’s consultation can now be found at www.bromsgrove.gov.uk/localplanlatestnews