Local Plan Review
We are reviewing our adopted Local Plan. Consultation on the Chelmsford Local Plan: Pre-Submission (Regulation 19) Document closed on Tuesday 18 March 2025.
This was our third and final stage of public consultation on the final draft Local Plan. The next step is to submit it for Independent Examination by a government-appointed Planning Inspector.
We also consulted on the Review of the Adopted Chelmsford Local Plan: Pre-Submission Integrated Impact Assessment, and two further planning documents.
Thank you to everyone who responded to our consultation. We are now reviewing all the comments we received, and we will publish all the comments on our consultation portal.
We will be sending acknowledgements with comment IDs as soon as we can for any outstanding comments we have received.
You can still read the consultation documents. These documents are large in size. You may find it easier to download and view these documents on a desktop computer, rather than on a smartphone or tablet.
We have published feedback reports from the earlier consultation stages:
Issues and Options ‘You Said We Did’ Feedback Report (May 2024)
Preferred Options ‘You Said We Did’ Feedback Report (February 2025)
You can see a list of all the adopted and allocated sites (Sites at a Glance), with a note of which Policies Map section they are shown on. The Policies Maps are included at Section 11 of the Local Plan Pre-Submission 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.
You can:
- view our What is a Local Plan? video
- download a copy of the FAQs
- read our Pre-Submission Local Plan Newsletter
- read our Integrated Impact Assessment Newsletter
- view our exhibition panels
We will acknowledge receipt of all ‘duly made’ representations to all the consultation events, but we will not enter into individual correspondence. We will record and publish all comments on the Consultation Portal .
You can find out more about how to use the consultation portal.
We will send all comments about the Chelmsford Local Plan: Pre-Submission (Regulation 19) Document, and Pre-Submission Integrated Impact Assessment (IIA), to the Planning Inspectorate for Independent Examination. We will also publish feedback reports.
We will finalise the Co-Living Housing Planning Advice Note in spring 2025, once we have considered the consultation responses.
We will prepare a feedback report on the Consultation Draft Planning Obligations Supplementary Planning Document (SPD), and submit the document as evidence for the Independent Examination. We expect to publish a final version when we adopt the Local Plan.
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.
Other useful information
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.
Pre-Submission (current stage)
This consultation was the third formal stage in the preparation of the review plan. This consultation focused on legal compliance and consistency with national planning policy.
The consultation ran for a period of six weeks from 10am on Tuesday 4 February 2025 to 4pm on Tuesday 18 March 2025.
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.
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 an Issues and Options 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 (previous stage)
This consultation was the second formal stage in the preparation of the review plan, and involved residents, businesses, developers, and other interested parties.
We have published a Preferred Options feedback report setting out a review of the consultation activity, a summary of the representations we received, and how these comments have been used to develop the Pre-Submission Local Plan document.
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.
Both the Danbury Neighbourhood Plan and the Broomfield Neighbourhood Plan have been made (adopted).
You can view the:
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 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.