Local Plan Review
We are reviewing our adopted Local Plan. We do this every five years to make sure we are planning for the future needs of our communities.
The next stage in the review is to consult on the Pre-Submission Local Plan early in 2025.
We report progress on the Local Plan to our Chelmsford Policy Board. At the next meeting on 16 January, we will seek approval to consult on the Pre-Submission Local Plan.
The committee papers will include the draft Pre-Submission Local Plan and supporting documents. However, the documents that go to Chelmsford Policy Board are not the final consultation documents.
We cannot accept comments before the consultation opens in February 2025.
The Pre-Submission Local Plan
This sets out our final policies for guiding growth and development across our area to 2041. In it, we identify sites for new facilities, homes and employment, as well as areas for protection and policies to help decide on planning applications.
Integrated Impact Assessment (IIA)
This assesses the Pre-Submission Local Plan against a range of social, environmental and economic indicators.
You Said We Did
This is our feedback report that summarises the Preferred Options Local Plan consultation from May and June 2024. It covers the comments we received and the main issues people raised, and how we have used this to refine the Pre-Submission Local Plan.
Draft Planning Obligations Supplementary Planning Document (SPD) 2025
We will also seek approval to consult on our Draft Planning Obligations Supplementary Planning Document (SPD) from Chelmsford Policy Board. This sets out how we will seek planning obligations, such as financial contributions towards important site improvements, when considering planning applications.
Timescale
We plan to consult in early 2025, and we cannot accept comments ahead of the consultation period.
If you are registered on our Planning Policy consultation portal, we will contact you to let you know about the consultation. If not, you can sign up for alerts to the consultation, and when the time comes you can read the consultation documents and comment online.
You can find out more about how the use the Planning Policy consultation portal.
More information
You can view our What is a Local Plan? video or download a copy of the FAQs.
Neighbourhood Plan consultations
We recently consulted on two Neighbourhood Plans. These have been developed by Broomfield and Danbury Parish Councils and cover a wide range of issues such as landscape, transport, recreation, heritage, building design, and business. When they are adopted, both Neighbourhood Plans will become part of the Local Plan and will be used for planning decision making.
You can view the:
We adopted our current Local Plan in May 2020. It guides growth and development across Chelmsford City Council's area to 2036. We need to review the plan at least every five years, to see if we need to update it. The review means that the Local Plan will now run until 2041.
Issues and Options (previous stage)
This was the first stage of consultation, which took place in 2022. Many people and organisations commented, and we have carefully considered all the responses, alongside updated evidence, national planning policy, new local priorities, and monitoring data.
You can read a feedback report which sets out the consultation feedback we received on the Issues and Options consultation and how we have taken the comments into account when preparing the Preferred Options Local Plan.
Preferred Options (current stage)
This consultation was the second formal stage in the preparation of the review plan, and involved residents, businesses, developers, and other interested parties.
The consultation closed on 19 June 2024.
Pre-Submission (future stage)
Consultation will focus on legal compliance and consistency with national planning policy.
Submission (future stage)
This is the formal Submission of the Local Plan. We will submit all plan documents, evidence, and comments to the Planning Inspector for an Independent Examination.
We will continue to assess the Local Plan as we review it, to make sure it contributes towards sustainability. We will assess the following aspects of sustainable development:
- Sustainability Appraisal
- Strategic Environmental Assessment
- Habitats Regulations Assessment
- Health Impact Assessment
- Equality Impact Assessment
The IIA assesses the issues and options against a range of social, environmental and economic indicators and helps to identify all the likely significant effects. The IIA advises on ways in which any adverse effects could be avoided, reduced or mitigated or how any positive effects could be maximised. This helps to ensure that the emerging policies, plans and allocations in the Local Plan are promoting sustainable development.
We use the Strategic Housing and Employment Land Availability Assessment (SHELAA) to assess sites nominated by landowners, promoters and developers. This helps us when researching and developing future Local Plans.
The SHELAA 2023/2024 is our latest published assessment. This assesses the sites put forward to us for consideration as part of the Local Plan Review. You can view the outcomes of that assessment.
The SHELAA is open all year round, meaning you can submit a new site or amend an existing site on a rolling basis. We aim to assess submissions yearly. We anticipate that the next cut-off point for submissions will be spring 2025.
You can submit a site for future assessment, or amend an already submitted site, through the current SHELAA facility.
You can find out more about how to submit or amend a site, and see the latest assessment outcomes.
We are developing a range of new and updated evidence to support the Local Plan review. We will publish the evidence base here as we develop it. You can search by name and/or category.
If you search by name or reference number, you can do this with or without choosing the category.
Alternatively, you can list all the documents in a category by choosing the category from the drop-down list and clicking on search.
We used several evidence base documents to support the adopted Local Plan. Many of these are still relevant or we will be updating them during the Local Plan review. Although they do not form part of this consultation, you can still view the evidence base for the Adopted Local Plan.
As we are undertaking a plan review, the Preferred Options Consultation Document is an edited and updated version of the existing adopted Chelmsford Local Plan 2020. The consultation document is a full draft plan and presented as a 'clean' version. We have also produced a tracked change version of the consultation document, so it is clear which parts are proposed for change.
You can see a list of all the adopted and proposed allocated sites, with a note of which Policies Map section they are shown on. The Policies Maps are included at Section 11 of the Local Plan Preferred Options Consultation Document.
Topic papers
We have produced several Topic Papers to set out how the review of the Local Plan has been developed. We will refresh and update them at each stage of the review process to ensure the latest information/position is available.
Topic Papers provide background information, but they do not contain any policies, proposals or site allocations. They will form part of the Local Plan evidence base which we will submit alongside the Local Plan for independent examination.
We have a specially designed consultation portal for Local Plan and other planning policy consultations.
If you register, you can:
- read and save consultation documents
- make your comments online
- receive alerts on future consultations
You can find out more about how to use the consultation portal.
We use the Local Development Scheme (LDS) to manage the plan-making process. It sets out our timetable for preparing the documents and for consulting on the Local Plan review.
We first adopted an LDS in 2006 and we have reviewed it regularly as we have made progress on producing our Local Plan.
This LDS is the ninth review. You can download the Chelmsford Local Development Scheme 2023-2028.
You can also download the eighth review of the LDS, which we published in November 2021. You can view the changes we have made since November 2021 in Appendix 1 of the 2023-2028 LDS document.
We are committed to working with other councils and key organisations on planning issues that cross council boundaries.
The organisations we regularly work with include Essex County Council, National Highways, environmental organisations and education providers.
We have to ensure that we properly co-ordinate strategic issues such as:
- land for new homes and jobs
- infrastructure
- providing schools
- mitigating climate change
We have adopted a Duty to Co-operate Strategy, which sets out who we will co-operate with and when, plus how we will do it.
You can download the Duty to Co-operate Strategy.