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Have your say on our latest consultations before midnight tonight
Today (19 April) is the deadline for you to comment on our Statement of Community Involvement, share your views on what the new Local Plan should contain and help us to develop a vision for the future of planning in our borough.
Your views will help us to prepare a new Local Plan that sets out a vision and objectives for the future of our borough over the next 20 years. We need residents, local organisations and businesses to get involved right from the start, and help inform these important planning documents.
Our current consultations close at midnight tonight, so there’s still time for you to be part of the conversation about the future of Waverley. Get involved and help us to actively shape our communities and places.
Have Your Say Today - Waverley Local Plan - Commonplace
Waverley Borough Council issues Call for Sites
Waverley Borough Council is asking people to suggest areas of land which they think may be suitable for future development like housing or business space over the next 20 years.
The Call for Sites is part of preparing a new Local Plan, and is carried out at the start so planning authorities know what land is available for possible future development before they start to draft a plan.
Sites can be suggested for a wide range of uses. This includes:
Councillor Liz Townsend, Waverley Borough Council Portfolio Holder for Planning, Regeneration and Economic Development said:
“We have a statutory requirement to review and to update our Local Plan, and the Government has a standard method for calculating the number of new homes we must provide. We will plan positively, assessing how much of the local need for homes, jobs and other uses can be accommodated, but this must always be balanced against the environmental, infrastructure, and policy constraints across our beautiful borough.
“We want to hear from you if you have any suggestions for sites that could be considered when we are developing the plan.
“The Call for Sites will not determine how much new development we need, or whether a site should be allocated for development. It is simply an opportunity to suggest sites that you would like to be evaluated as part of the preparation of our updated Waverley Local Plan.
“Once complete, this process will help our planning team identify potential sites for consideration. They can then start to work with our local communities, look at all the options, and eventually choose the most suitable sites for new development.”
The Call for Sites runs until 31 March 2024, and there is no size threshold for the submission of sites. Further details of how to submit a site to the council can be found on our website at www.waverley.gov.uk/CallForSites
Waverley Borough Council begins work on a new Local Plan
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 policies 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