Waverley Borough Council has published the timetable for preparing a new Local Plan, which is available to view online at www.waverley.gov.uk/LocalPlanTimetable.
The new Local Plan will set out a vision and objectives for the borough, and policies to deliver these over the next 20 years. One of the aims of the plan is to meet as much of the local need for homes, employment, and other uses as possible, given the environmental, infrastructure, and policy constraints in the borough.
The council will prepare the new Local Plan over the next three years and, following an independent examination, aims to adopt it at the end of 2027. This is a much shorter time period than has been used to prepare previous plans in Waverley. It will require the council to build on previous technical work and consultation, and to take advantage of the Government’s emerging planning reforms intended to simplify and speed up plan making.
Councillor Liz Townsend, Waverley Borough Council Portfolio Holder for Planning, Economic Development and Regeneration, explains the urgency:
“One of the main reasons to update the Local Plan is to regain control of the housing requirement for Waverley. We have no option but to review our Plan, as the main part of it is over five years old now and needs updating. Until we have a new Plan in place, we are stuck with spiralling housing numbers resulting from the Government’s ‘standard method’ for calculating local housing need. This increases our number to 720 new dwellings each year, which is much higher than our previous allocation of 590 per year and was already a challenge to meet. This will undoubtedly attract more speculative development proposals on sites that have not been agreed through the Local Plan or Neighbourhood Plans. The new Local Plan is the only opportunity to try and set a more sustainable housing number that is justified by robust evidence, which we have started to gather. It also gives us the opportunity to strengthen our polices on priority issues such as climate change, nature recovery, and design.”
The council will run a ‘call-for-sites’ until March 2024, to gather information on sites that can be assessed in preparing the Local Plan. The suitability of sites will be considered as part of a Land Availability Assessment, using a wide range of sustainability and deliverability criteria. Details of the call for sites, including how to submit a site, will be available online later in December, or by contacting the Waverley Borough Council Planning Policy team.
The council will be sharing the results of technical work and seeking views from the local community and other stakeholders through both the CommonPlace online engagement portal and traditional engagement.
In January, the council will be inviting views on the scope of the Local Plan, as set out in the Local Development Scheme, and asking whether the vision and objectives set out in the current Local Plan are still the right ones to go forward with.
For more information, or to add your details to the Local Plan consultation database, please visit https://waverley.inconsult.uk/system/register or email the Planning Policy Team at planningpolicy@waverley.gov.uk.
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