A new Local Plan for South Gloucestershire is a step closer to being approved after Full Council agreed to launch a final round of public consultation on the proposals at the end of February.
The Plan, which will cover the 15-year period between 2026 and 2041, sets out where and how new homes, employment land and community-supporting infrastructure will be developed. All local authorities are required to have an up-to-date Local Plan, which must comply with national planning laws, which have recently been updated by the Government.
Having a current Local Plan helps to protect the area from speculative development and attempts by large developers to gain planning permission by appeal. Also, despite increasing pressure on areas of the Green Belt from new national guidelines, the proposed plan for South Gloucestershire allocates only 2.53 per cent of that land in the district for potential building, the majority of which is not high-quality open space that currently delivers significant environmental or ecological benefits.
Following earlier rounds of consultation, there have been changes to the draft Plan, where evidence has shown that initial proposals would not deliver enough benefit. For example, a number of sites in the villages of Cromhall, Olveston, Rangeworthy and Marshfield have been removed from the current draft in favour of alternatives, and a potential development at the Frenchay Christmas Tree Farm on Old Gloucester Road has been removed. Marshfield no longer has any new allocations suggested in the regulation 19 plan as the Council instead supports the prioritisation of local homes being delivered through the Marshfield Community Land Trust which has identified a site that it is progressing.
Through the Plan, the council is determined to deliver appropriate, safe and secure housing for people in South Gloucestershire well into the future to suit a range of identified needs, including for new affordable homes for rent and sale. Within the Plan a significant number of new housing allocations will be required to deliver at least 40 per cent affordable homes, compared to the previous Core Strategy requirement of 35 per cent in order to meet this need.
Recognising that the population is ageing, the draft Plan focuses on delivering homes that are Age Friendly, to support places that enable us to age well and so more people can live independently in their own homes for longer.
The Plan will also require new homes to be built to significantly improved environmental standards, enshrining clean and renewable energy technology and performance.
South Gloucestershire Council’s Cabinet Member for Planning, Regeneration, and Infrastructure, Councillor Chris Willmore, said: “Developing this plan has been a long process, but through our ongoing and constructive engagement with the community, we are bringing forward a set of proposals that we believe will meet our future needs and that comply with national planning law.
“We accept that not everyone will like everything in the Plan, some of the decisions we have had to make have been very difficult. We share local people’s passion to protect the character of the places they love to live. But we would be doing those people and the next generations a disservice if we simply tried to put up a roadblock to any new building. In fact, we would open ourselves up to having very little say at all about where and new homes would be built at all, if we didn’t bring forward a realistic and balanced Plan.
“Taken together, the proposals and measures contained in the Plan, and the policies that are published alongside it, will provide for the future housing needs of the district. It will help to deliver the employment land and infrastructure improvements required to support the population. And it will give the district an up to date and robust set of guidelines that will say to potential developers: ‘Yes, we need new homes and infrastructure, but these are the terms on which we need them. You need to build for the people of South Gloucestershire, we are not powerless to control where and how you do it’.”
Following the decision of Full Council, the draft Local Plan will now progress to a statutory six-week consultation process that will launch on 28 February.
Full details of how to take part and make submissions to the consultation will be published by the council when the process opens.
Consultation responses and submissions will then be provided to the Government’s Planning Inspectorate, which will examine the Plan to determine if it is sound. It is expected that the Inspectorate will hold in-person hearings on the plan in the spring next year. Details of how to participate in that phase of the process will be published by the council in due course.
