Public responses on Local Plan published

More than 2,000 representations were received, from 430 individuals or organisations, when the Council published its Proposed Submission Local Plan for public representation in September 2017.

People were asked to make representations on whether the proposed Local Plan was legally compliant, whether partner organisations have been appropriately consulted, and whether it is ‘sound’. This is a legal planning term referring to the Local Plan being founded on robust and credible background information, able to meet development needs, deliverable and consistent with national policy.

The representations received can be viewed on the Council’s website here. (You do not need to register or log in).

A blue magnifying glass symbol shows where there are representations to view. Simply click on the magnifying glass to view them.

The Council is also publishing a report for its 1 February 2018 meeting of the Local Planning Executive Advisory Panel. The report is available on the Council’s website.

The report includes a list of the main issues raised in the public representations, including concerns that both too much and too little housing is planned, that too much employment land is planned and concerns around traffic congestion arising from the new housing.

It is considered that the responses received to the consultation do not raise any issues of soundness that cannot be resolved during the Local Plan Examination. As such, the report advises the Executive Committee to recommend to Council to submit the Harborough Local Plan to Government.

Also published is the Consultation Statement which details all of the consultation on the Local Plan undertaken to date, as well as a list of proposed modifications to the Local Plan.

Following the meeting of the Panel on 1 February 2018, the report is expected to be recommended to a special meeting of the Council’s Executive on 15 February 2018 and then to a special meeting of Council on 5 March 2018. If Council decides to submit the Harborough Local Plan, this will be officially sent to the Government before the end of March 2018 for Examination by a Planning Inspector. The Planning Inspector may hold a number of hearing sessions to consider the Local Plan further, before preparing their report into the ‘soundness’ of the Local Plan.

The Local Plan is expected to be finalised and ‘adopted’ before the end of 2018.