In 2021, we asked you to tell us about the issues affecting you and your local area and which of the 4 alternative growth option we should include in this draft local plan. Using this feedback, we have prepared a new vision for the draft local plan, identified a growth strategy, allocated sites to meet this growth strategy and developed a series of local plan policies.

The 6 week public consultation on this draft local plan closes at 23:59 on 14 December 2022. We will then carefully analyse all the responses we receive, and they will then be reported to councillors who will decide what changes should be made to the draft Local Plan.

Later in 2023, we will publish the final draft Local Plan (Regulation 19) and you will be able to make further comments before the plan is submitted to be examined by an independent planning inspector.  The inspector will be responsible for convening an examination.  The examination is open for everyone to attend but the inspector will be responsible for deciding who they would like to appear and give evidence at the examination. 

The Local Plan will address local housing need, the economy, environmental considerations including the climate emergency, community infrastructure as well as strategic infrastructure needs, and is being prepared with the climate emergency at the centre of our thinking. Specifically the Local Plan is a document produced by Winchester City Council in its role as the local planning authority, to set out what development may be allowed up to 2038. It does not cover the whole of the district because the South Downs National Park Authority has responsibility for planning matters in a large part of the council’s area (around 40% of the district) and they have made their own plan.   

The plan will make site specific allocations to meet identified development needs of the future. Once we have fully engaged with the local community and it has been through all of its formal stages, it will be used to assess planning applications and appeals. 

The Local Development Scheme (LDS) sets out the council’s programme for the production of planning policy documents that form the Winchester Local Plan. The latest LDS was approved by the Council’s Cabinet (Local Plan) Committee on 21 July 2021 and was brought into effect immediately. The LDS can be viewed here.

Under the current planning regulations, every five years all local planning authorities in England and Wales are required by the Government to review their Local Plan and to make sure that it takes a long enough look ahead in terms of planning for the development needed in the district. That includes reviewing its policies in the light of changes in what the Government requires of us as well as changes in circumstances locally and more widely along the implications of COVID-19 in the changes to the way that we live and work. All these factors will tell us what we need to plan for in relation to housing, jobs, shopping, infrastructure, community facilities, protecting our rich built and natural heritage.