Where are we now? The Steps to Produce a Local Plan to Date

Local plans provide a framework that planners and councillors use to make decisions about planning applications in a particular district council area. They include local priorities for future development, infrastructure requirements, the number and type of homes and other buildings that should be constructed and where those buildings should and should not be placed.

The old Lewes District Council Local Plan expired in May 2021. Unfortunately the government imposed a standard method (otherwise know as the ‘mutant formula’) for calculating housing need in each area of the country. As a result the new local plan faced a target for housebuilding that almost doubled the number of homes required in the Lewes District, going up to about around 800 p.a. (782 to be exact with 23% of those allocated to the South Downs National Park (SDNP)areas of the Lewes District, leaving 602 for the non-SDNP areas). That number can be challenged, LDC did so successfully with the old plan, but it requires a strong case supported by a lot of evidence about the local area, its ability to absorb new housing and the needs of the local population. And LDC must show that it has examined every possible option to reach the target first.

In the months before the old plan expired LDC planners conducted a ‘Call for Sites’ asking local landowners throughout the district to submit suggestions for where building could take place. They then sent each parish and town council  a list of the responses to the Call for Sites in their area and asked for comments. This is what brought the Eton New Town proposal to our attention. Welbeck (on behalf of Eton) had been in discussion (perfectly properly) with the local planning department for some time before then.

After the Call for Sites LDC conducted a public consultation in the summer of 2021 – the famous ‘Issues and Options’ consultation. Given the situation with Covid the consultation was conducted as an online questionnaire. There was only one question about ‘spatial distribution’ i.e. where houses should be built and at what density. DUtD campaigned successfully over the summer via Drop-in Days to get a large response to the consultation opposing the option of placing a ‘ settlement in the Low Weald’ i.e. the Eton New Town or an equivalent. Of the 4000 responses LDC received to the consultation 25 at most1 preferred this option – an overwhelming rejection of the Eton New Town proposal.

Since the consultation LDC planners have been making sure ‘there is no stone unturned’ in looking for sites to build and evidence to support or reject building on them. They must do this by law to build a plan that doesn’t get taken apart by the planning inspector who will ultimately judge whether it’s a valid plan or not. In the process they have added two other smaller options for a large development in the Low Weald, at Cooksbridge and Ringmer. They also started gathering detailed evidence to assess the potential for the district to accept development, looking at (among other things) the need for housing and other building in the District, the local economy/jobs, infrastructure requirements and the local environment and geography. The planners aim to produce a ‘heat map’ for the district such as one using a RAG (red, amber, green) scheme with showing areas where development was sustainable in green, where it was not in red and where it might be under certain conditions in amber.

Evidence gathering has been going on for some time and the dates recently published for each stage of the local plan process show about a 2 year delay from LDC’s original timetable. That’s in line with previous indications from LDC. We were told that planners were ‘going slow’ to make sure all bases are covered and they have a strong evidence base to support whatever local plan is finally proposed. That should make the plan more likely to be accepted by the planning inspector who will ultimately decide whether it is valid and what changes, if any, are required before it can be adopted.

1 Comments contradict selected options in some instances.

What’s Next? The Stages to Come

Lewes District Council adopted a Revised Local Development Scheme (LDS) in July 2023. The LDS contains the table below in section 4.5.

Source: https://www.lewes-eastbourne.gov.uk/local-development-scheme

Note: references in brackets (reg 18, 19, 22, 24 or 26) are to the relevant regulation number in the Town and Country Planning (Local Planning) Regulations that govern the process for producing a local plan. They give the principles but every local authority does it slightly differently and may only decide the details of how it’s going to conduct each step as it goes through the process.

At each stage in the local plan process LDC must show its given everyone involved a chance to have their say with some form of consultation. It must summarise the feedback from the consultation, draw conclusions from it and address those conclusions in the next stage. Here’s what should happen stage by stage:

·       Preferred Options Consultation (reg 18) – Autumn 2023

The Planning Department of Lewes District Council (with the support of consultants) is collecting and evaluating evidence so they can recommend a set of planning ‘options’ to Lewes District Council for the new local plan that include whether to build on any of the three large sites. The options will be put to LDC’s Cabinet first and then the options and the results of the evidence gathering will be published before a preferred options consultation begins in November 2023. That consultation will probably involve ‘interested parties’ such as DUtD, parish councils, Eton/Welbeck and other significant local landowners and developers. It won’t be a full public consultation. The evidence documents should include an evaluation of every site in the Call for Sites and whether it’s a good idea to develop that site. A draft evaluation was published some time ago for all sites except the three large ones - in East Chiltington (Eton), Cooksbridge and Ringmer.

If common sense prevails the Eton New Town plan will be excluded from the Preferred Options. In which case Eton/Welbeck has the right to campaign to get it back in the final version of the plan. If common sense and the opinion of local people are ignored and the Eton New Town site is included we will campaign to get it taken out of the draft plan at the next stage.

·       Draft Plan consultation (Reg 18) – forecasted to occur in Spring 2024 (probably May 2024 at the earliest on past performance)

This is exactly what it says. A draft plan (based on the preferred options and the results of the consultation) will be put to a vote by LDC, probably at least the Cabinet, possibly a vote of all councillors. The resulting draft plan will then be published and some sort of public consultation will be held. It could include an online questionnaire, public events/meetings/presentations and/or discussions with interested parties (see previous stage) or combinations of these. We won’t know until LDC decides the details of the process and then tells us.

·       Publication of (pre-submission) and consultation (Reg 19) – Winter 2024

Here we go again! After considering the documented feedback from the draft plan consultation, LDC will change the draft plan as it deems appropriate, get approval of the revised plan from the entire council and publish the resulting plan as the edition it wants to get government approval for (in the next couple of stages).

·       Submission to the Secretary of State (reg 22) – Spring 2025

Pretty self-explanatory. The relevant Secretary of State gets the plan and appoints a planning inspector to head up the next stage. Representations on the content of the plan will be invited from interested parties by the inspector.

·       Examination in public (reg 24) – Autumn/Winter 2025

The planning inspector (and their staff) goes through the plan and all the supporting evidence and submissions and holds a series of hearings to determine if the plan has been prepared in accordance with legal and procedural requirements and thus determine whether it is ‘sound’. If it’s found to be sound and legally compliant the inspector will recommend that it is ‘adopted’. If the inspector doesn’t find it sound and legally compliant they can either throw the whole thing out or recommend changes that would make it sound. Up until the plan is adopted Welbeck/Eton can continue to campaign for a change to get their site included (if it’s been excluded) just as we can continue to campaign to get it excluded (if it has been included). But there must be sound planning grounds to do so. That’s why all that evidence LDC Planning is collecting is so important. If they screw up on a detail of procedure or evidence they can give Eton, us or anyone else an opportunity to challenge the plan. They are almost bound to get something wrong. It depends what and how significant it is.

·       Adoption and Publication (reg 26)

Bit like Monopoly – you’ve got back to ‘Go’ and now have a valid local plan in place ….. until the next time round. If the Eton site doesn’t make it into the adopted local plan it will be almost impossible for them to get a planning application approved for such a large development unless there is a major change in the law/regulations. But there is nothing stopping them having another go next time round should they chose to do so.