Green Belt and Countryside Study

We are preparing our new Local Plan, to replace the Local Plan 2003. The new Local Plan will set out a vision for the whole borough for the next 20 years. It is the plan for homes, work, shops, leisure, services and infrastructure, based on technical evidence and input from our communities. The Plan will also aim to protect and enhance the borough's many natural and built assets.

To help with the Local Plan strategy and sites document, we need to have a good understanding about how much growth we should be planning for. National planning policy (the National Planning Policy Framework) says that our Local Plan should meet our full objectively assessed housing need. Our work shows that we are unable to meet these needs from development in the urban areas and villages.

The Green Belt and Countryside Study, alongside other evidence base documents, will help to show how much growth we could accommodate across the borough whilst still preserving the important role that Green Belt and countryside land currently fulfils. It also looks at whether we could designate new Green Belt land.

It is very important to note that this study does not allocate land for development nor does it imply that land is suitable for development. Instead, the study offers a range of sites that we may choose to allocate through the Local Plan process.

The original brief is available to download here [2.44MB] .Since then we have commissioned further work (Volume V). This ensures that the study is robust and has assessed all potential opportunities for growth across the borough. A copy of the brief is available here [52.05KB]  together with the addendum [17.26KB] .

We also commissioned additional work arising from the Joint Scrutiny Committee. The additional work includes a Volume II addendum and a re-issue of Volume IV. All these documents are available to view using the links below. We have done further work on the GBCS to assess whether our traveller sites should become inset from the Green Belt. This will help ensure that we can meet our Traveller need as part of our new Local Plan. This is contained in Volume VI which is available to view or download below. The findings of Volume VI have informed our updated Land Availability Assessment (LAA) [1.65MB]  Appendix A.