Local Plan set to go before Cabinet in December
Shropshire Council’s Cabinet will be asked to approve the latest ‘pre-submission’ version of the council’s new Local Plan at its next meeting on Monday 7 December 2020. This is known as the Regulation 19 stage of Plan making.
It is the role of the Local Plan to support the delivery of sustainable development across the county, to ensure future housing and employment opportunities are in the right place and of the right type to meet local needs.
The Plan also provides a range of key policies and opportunities to manage future development, including mitigating the impacts of climate change, supporting health and wellbeing, and ensuring development is of high quality design.
Following the latest round of consultation this summer, the Local Plan was due to go before Cabinet on 23 November 2020, but the meeting has now been put back until Monday 7 December 2020 in order for officers to give full consideration to the significant level of feedback received. The latest important consultation has followed four earlier stages of consultation on the Local Plan since 2017.
Robert Macey, Shropshire Council’s Cabinet member for housing and strategic planning, said:
“This latest version of the Plan was due to go before Cabinet later this month but we have decided to push that back by two weeks.
“We have had more than 2,500 responses in the most recent round of consultation, and we felt that given the importance and interest in the issue, it is only fair to give us more time to consider every response fully.
“Therefore it will now go before Cabinet in early December, once we are certain that everything has been given full consideration.
“I want to thank everybody who took part in the consultation, it is so valuable to have your feedback.
“The Local Plan review is of importance to the whole of the county and we know there is significant interest in the next phase.
“The plan will feature our key policies on important issues like affordable housing, climate change and economic growth. It sets out how the needs and aspirations of our county can be supported in the long term.”
If it gains Cabinet approval on 7 December, the Regulation 19 version of the Local Plan will be subject to a further period of public consultation between December and January 2021, ahead of its proposed submission to Government for Independent Examination in April 2021, subject to approval by Full Council.
Further information
Shropshire Council is undertaking a partial review of the Local Plan for the period 2016 to 2038.
The review includes consideration of housing requirements (including objectively assessed need) including affordable housing provision, employment land requirements, the distribution of development and a review of green belt boundaries, as part of the consideration of strategic options to deliver new development.
The purpose of the review is to update certain elements of the plan, and to ensure that we can respond flexibly to changing circumstances in line with the National Planning Policy Framework (NPPF).
Strategic sites are large sites of more than 25ha in size, which are not associated with meeting the growth needs of any particular settlement but which will contribute to achieving the aspirations of the Economic Growth Strategy for Shropshire.
