New Local Plan - Overview and Stages
Overview
The Council needs to ensure its Local Plan is up to date so it can positively manage built development and protect other areas from inappropriate development. The Council is preparing a new Local Plan to update the adopted Local Plan.
The New Local Plan will be a long-term plan to guide development within the district in the period up to 2042. It will set out a strategy for the amount, location and design of new built development (such as homes, schools, employment, retail) whilst helping to protect the countryside, important green spaces and the built and natural heritage from inappropriate development, as well as improve the natural environment and tackle climate change.
Once adopted, the New Local Plan will be used to make decisions on planning applications.
Stages of Plan-Making
Preparing a Local Plan includes a number of stages. The plan-making process is set out in law. The key stages are:
- Evidence gathering and scoping
- Consultation and engagement (Regulation 18)
- Drafting the Plan
- Public consultation on the Submission Draft Plan (Regulation 19)
- Submission of Local Plan to Secretary of State for Examination
- Examination
- Adoption
Progress on new Blaby Local Plan
Work on the new Blaby Local Plan began in 2019 and includes:
Evidence
Several evidence documents have been prepared to support and guide the plan-making process. This information is added to the website as it becomes available.
Regulation 18 Consultation
Several 'Call for Sites' exercises were undertaken in 2019 and 2021 to invite landowners to tell us what land interests there are in the District for potential housing, employment, retail or other development uses. The Call for Sites remained open until 2024.
The New Local Plan Issues and Options document was published in 2019 for consultation purposes. This document considered a range of planning related issues and potential options. It focused on the overarching strategic matters rather than site specific issues.
The New Local Plan Options document was published in 2021 for consultation purposes. The consultation focused on three key areas:
- Options for the location of future development. It sets out the direction that the Council expected to take.
- All reasonable site options. These are sites promoted to the Council for built development by landowners, developers and site promoters.
- Initial information about the main policies we expected to include in the Local Plan.
Regulation 19 Consultation
Taking account of the evidence, national policy and previous consultation, the final version of the Plan is currently being drafted. This final version is known as the Regulation 19 or Submission Draft version. Public consultation will take place when drafting of the document is completed and agreed by Full Council.
