TrustNews Sep 21

Local Plan Review

John Beveridge provides an update on progress and next steps for Winchester's new Local Plan.

 

Winchester City Council's cabinet was updated in July with a report on the timetable for the next steps in the review of the Local Plan, with everything being delayed by about nine months.

 

The total number of responses received by the City Council to the Strategic issues and Priorities consultation earlier this year was 2,202, and they managed to reach 104,800 people about the consultation by using social media for the first time on Local Plan matters.

 

The City Council will take until June next year to finish their assessment of the replies to the consultation, and then in August 2022 they aim to publish the first draft of the next Local Plan on which there is likely to be a two month period for public consultation.

 

There are two issues that the Trust considers to be particularly important which get a brief mention in the City Council's paper. As part of the Review they are going to consider matters of design, which the revised National Planning Policy Framework has emphasised as being particularly important.

 

They also refer cryptically to the need to include spatial planning for our city within the new plan. For some years the Trust has lobbied the City Council about the need for a strategic plan for the whole city that addresses all the inter-connected issues such as the redevelopment of important sites in the centre and the management of traffic and movement. While we welcome their willingness to look at spatial issues in Winchester, we are sceptical about the district-wide scope of a Local Plan and all the issues it has to address being able to accommodate all the details that need to be controlled and directed in the city. This would be better done as a separate exercise leading to a planning document for Winchester alone.

 

 

John Beveridge