Final stage of consultation approved on draft West Suffolk Local Plan

The final stage of consultation on the draft West Suffolk Local Plan, will take place early in the new year after councillors voted their approval.

Once adopted, the West Suffolk Local Plan, which will guide how and where new homes and employment is built to the year 2040.

This week’s meeting saw councillors at West Suffolk Council approve the local plan going out to a third and final stage of consultation early next year.

The government sets out several stages of public consultation that a draft local plan must go through in its preparation. The draft West Suffolk Local Plan has already been shaped by the first stage issues and options public consultation in 2020 and the preferred options consultation in 2022.

The submission stage draft builds on the evidence from hundreds of representations received in these two previous rounds of public consultation.

This third round of consultation will form a legal test of the plan to check it ahead of submitting to the Secretary of State. A government-appointed planning inspector will then hold an examination in public before the plan finally comes back to council to adopt.

The new local plan will allocate sites for 5,211 new homes alongside 9,075 homes that already have planning permission and a windfall allowance of 1,200 homes. The total number it needs to deliver over the plan period is 13,702 but the local plan deliberately over allocates to allow for flexibility over the plan period.

The latest draft of the plan also includes policies to deliver more affordable homes as well as sustainable housing through measures including solar panels on roofs wherever practically possible.

Once adopted, the local plan will also require a proportion of new homes to be more accessible, so that they can be adapted to people’s changing health needs. That allows them to stay longer living in their own homes which is better both for them and their families and reduces the impact on health and social care.

Policies also include introducing space standards for rooms and gardens for all new houses as well as access to additional open space for flats.

And the West Suffolk Local Plan plan will ensure funding from developers is secured to pay for infrastructure such as money toward education provision, highways, footpaths and cycleways.

The local plan also makes provision for 86 hectares for employment growth enabling the council to help support the expansion of existing local companies, as well as the creation of new businesses, and attracting new businesses to the area, all to the benefit of the local West Suffolk economy.

By allocating the land for much-needed housing and employment for West Suffolk’s growing communities the local plan also protects other areas such as the countryside from harmful, speculative development, and it ensures that residents and elected councillors continue to have a public voice and a say on planning applications submitted to the council.

Jim Thorndyke, cabinet member for Planning, said: “We have listened to the feedback and evidence of the first two consultations and this has helped shape the submission stage draft of the plan. This latest consultation will form more of a legal check of the document ahead of us submitting to the Secretary of State and we will announce more details about this early next year.

“In the meantime, I am grateful to my fellow councillors for all their invaluable input to date and for agreeing the plan for consultation. This plan has evolved over three years of hard work and dedication by councillors of all political parties and I am grateful for this.

“Through this local plan we are looking to deliver more affordable and sustainable housing that can cater and adapt to people’s changing health needs.

“We are looking to ensure the supply of good quality housing for our growing communities here in West Suffolk.

“We are also looking to ensure the future success of our local economy by making sure that there is land set aside for employment growth ensuring existing business can expand and retain jobs in our area as well as encouraging the growth of new businesses and attracting others to our area.”