The Local Plan is a crucial part of the planning process and helps ensure that we can meet our climate change commitments. It currently sets out how many homes and commercial properties will be built, and where, by setting this out in a Local Plan it aims to ensure that new development is sustainable without impacting upon people’s health and wellbeing or the environment.
The existing plan sets out how and where development should happen over the next ten years and identifies how infrastructure including school places, GP surgeries, leisure facilities, roads, and green spaces can be provided to meet the needs of both of existing and new residents. The plan also includes key policies which are used when deciding on planning applications.
We are required to review our Local Plan at least every five years to ensure that is appropriate and effective. The review process also allows us to incorporate changes to national planning policy including changes to our housing targets that have been introduced since the plan was drawn up in 2020.
The Local Plan Review is set to launch on Monday 31 March, we will update this page with more details as soon as possible.
We are legally required to review the Local Plan within five years of it being adopted, which will be July 2025 for our Local Plan.
We need to check whether the policies have performed well and whether any changes or new policies are needed to respond to new pressures, challenges faced by communities, and government guidance.
We have completed an internal review of our Local Plan which concluded that some of our policies need updating but the overall strategy remains effective. We are now in the early stages of preparing our updated local plan.
The government has published proposed changes to the National Planning Policy Framework (NPPF) and the methodology used to calculate future housing needs. These changes could result in the council needing to plan for a substantial increase in new homes. We need to consider the possible implications of these changes. If the government goes ahead with the proposed revisions to the NPPF, we are likely to need a more extensive review of our Spatial Strategy.
We had been intending to submit a draft plan to the Secretary of State by June 2025 under the ‘old’ plan-making system. This was set out in our Local Plan timetable (Local Development Scheme), which indicated public consultation taking place between May and November 2024. Due to the need to assess the implications of the Government’s NPPF and Planning Reforms consultation, our timetable will need to change slightly.
We will formally update our Local Plan timetable (Local Development Scheme) after the Government has confirmed the date for the publication of the amended NPPF and the transitional arrangements that will apply.
Please email local.plan@chesterfield.gov.uk with ‘Get Updates’ as the subject and give us your name and address if you would like to receive email updates about the Local Plan.
Call for sites
As part of the evidence gathering stage, in 2022 we completed a call for sites.
The aim of this was to identify sites that have the potential to be developed for housing or employment but also to help find sites that could be used to enhance local biodiversity or other uses.
For more information about this, please see call for sites.