Council Plans Ahead with New System

The Act introduced a new system, which replaces Structure Plans and Local Plans with regional strategies and a collection of documents known as the Local Development Framework.

The District Council has reached the first stage in this process by publishing a Local Development Scheme. It sets out where current planning policies for the area can be found as well as how and when these are intended to be reviewed in the future.

An important part of the new system is to make sure that all parties affected by planning policies and decisions have the opportunity to participate. The various ways that the Council intends to achieve this are to be set out in a Statement of Community Involvement.

The Council has produced a draft Statement of Community Involvement and invites comments by Friday 6 May.

Both documents can be viewed at the Council's offices and at libraries across the District as well as on this website.

While the new planning system has been kick-started, the Council also intends to finalise and adopt the District Local Plan Review.

The Inspector's Report on the Public Inquiry held last year is due to be published in April. This will assess the objections made to the Draft Plan and recommend to the Council how it should be modified.