Published: Tuesday, 2nd September 2025
As the six months mark is reached since its Local Plan was adopted, the Borough Council has revealed details of how the plan has continued to develop.
The Local Plan is intended to last until 2040 but the council’s planning policy work continues throughout that time and recent developments include making the plan interactive and publishing key monitoring documents.
Cllr Jim Moriarty, Cabinet Member for Planning, said:
“I have seen, first hand, the sheer volume of work and dedication that goes into preparing a Local Plan for adoption – in particular on the part of the Planning Policy Team and the Local Plan Task Group.
“But that work doesn’t stop once the plan is adopted: planning policy work, of which preparation and monitoring of Local Plans is a part, changes and evolves continuously.
“Since the Local Plan was adopted, the planning policy and monitoring teams have developed a range of online tools that will make it easier to navigate and understand.
“They have also published a series of documents that will help us to monitor the progress of our Local Plan, which is a key element of plan making. These steps will help us respond to the Government’s drive to change the planning system, with a key focus on digital and accessibility.”
The Local Plan is already supported by an Interactive Planning Policies Map, but this has been significantly expanded into a fully interactive online version of the Local Plan. The new Interactive Local Plan 2021-2040 is now live.
The team has also rolled out a number of key documents, including:
- Custom and Self-Build Position Statement (May 2025) – measuring numbers of Custom and Self-Build homes permitted since 2016, set against the legal Custom and Self-Build Register
- Housing Delivery Test Action Plan 2025 – including an indicative 2024 HDT result (93%), with the final 2024 result expected to be confirmed in late 2025
- 2024-2025 housing trajectory – for the monitoring period 1 April 2024 – 31 March 2025, showing latest 5-year housing land supply calculation (7.9 years) and an updated record of current planning permissions and Local Plan housing land allocations, and when these are anticipated to come forward (2025-2040)
- Interactive Monitoring Map – showing the location of new homes completed in the Borough during the 2024/25 financial year, as well as housing sites which have planning permission and have started. This can be explored by parish.
Further information on the Local Plan and supporting/ related initiatives is available via our Planning policy and local plan page.