Strategy – What our Local Plan needs to do
Core Strategy Policy CS5 ‘Location of Development’ sets out our adopted planning strategy, which directs where growth and change should be located to allow for new homes, jobs and infrastructure up to 2027.
2027 is only five years away. Many of our large development sites for new homes and jobs have started, or are about to start, developing. Our new Local Plan needs to set a new strategy to guide where in South Gloucestershire we locate a large number of new homes, space for jobs, supporting services, facilities, and infrastructure over the next 20years.
There are also new demands and requirements on planning for growth and change in our area, such as making even more effective use of urban land in sustainable locations, responding to a climate emergency so considering where we grow and protect for renewable energy and networks of green infrastructure
In these early stages of preparing our new Local Plan we will be sharing key information and initial options that present different approaches and locations to providing the new homes, jobs, renewable energy and green infrastructure
Phase 1 strategy building blocks – what you told us
In our phase 1 document we shared five potential ‘building blocks’:
Building block 1: existing urban areas – ‘Urban Lifestyles’
Building blocks beyond our urban areas
Building block 2: expanding our main urban areas through small or large urban extensions
Building block 3: growth around our market towns
Building block 4: rural villages and settlements
Building block 5: large scale free standing new settlements
- there was general recognition that elements of all building blocks would be needed as part of our strategy for growth and change
- nearly all stakeholders supported the principles of urban lifestyles and utilising urban land and land within our market towns as effectively as possible, though it was flagged that higher density would not always be suitable and the approach needed to be different depending on the location across our urban areas and within our market towns
- communities which have experienced recent growth within and around our market owns and rural villages where speculative development has occurred were concerned about the impacts of further growth on infrastructure character and quality of life in those locations
- concern from a range of stakeholders that brand new, free standing settlements can be problematic to deliver, with long delivery times, though some considered them a potential route of delivering a large number of homes
You can view all the responses to the strategy and building blocks sections of the Phase 1 document, and key statistics from the Phase 1 consultation here.
The ‘Urban lifestyles‘ and ‘Creating sustainable rural villages‘ sections of this document provides further summaries of the key points raised on those building blocks.
Phase 2 – Strategy consultation
In this consultation we want to focus the discussion on the contribution that two of our building blocks could make to meeting our need for new homes, jobs and forming part of a new growth strategy.
These building blocks are not entirely dependent on being developed and shaped in parallel with the options for growth and change, that will be shared in the emerging sub-regional Spatial Development Strategy (SDS – due to be consulted on in spring 2022):
- urban lifestyles – areas within the existing settlement boundaries of the North and East Fringe communities and within the market towns of Yate and Chipping Sodbury, and Thornbury
- creating sustainable rural villages – small and medium and very local needs growth in all our villages and settlements
We also want to share options for where land might be safeguarded and used for:
- a strategic green infrastructure network – updating and refining our existing GI network by defining strategic corridors with opportunities for enhanced connectivity to both protect designated sites and natural habitats, and inform the way land use changes and develops, without adversely impacting upon on the integrity of the network and promoting biodiversity quality and connection for nature and people
- renewable energy generation – setting out land that can be used for solar and wind production to address our need to produce more renewable energy as part of the declared climate emergency
What about other building blocks and options for large scale growth of new homes and jobs?
The West of England Combined Authority is working closely with ourselves, Bath and North East Somerset Council and Bristol City Council to prepare a Spatial Development Strategy (SDS) to cover the period 2022-2042.
This will set out broad locations for growth to meet the need for homes and jobs and the overall strategic planning context, for the sub region we are located in.
As progress is made with the SDS, we will have a clearer idea what combination of our key building blocks we will need to address the priorities for development and use of land in South Gloucestershire up to 2042.
Read the next chapter – Urban lifestyles – update
Go back to the Local Plan 2020 – Phase 2 Urban, Rural and Key Issues document landing page.