Update on the progress of the Castle Point Plan
STATEMENT BY THE LEADER, THE DEPUTY LEADER AND THE PORTFOLIO HOLDER FOR STRATEGIC PLANNING
Since this Administration resolved to withdraw the previous unadopted local plan on 15 June 2022, the Council has worked consistently to prepare a new local plan for the Borough, the Castle Point Plan.
We have undertaken full and proper engagement from the outset with the local community, businesses and our partners and stakeholders in order to rebuild their trust in plan making in the Borough, and to ensure that we fully understood the aspirations of the community to shape the issues the Castle Point Plan needed to address.
We have worked with successive governments to meet their changing deadlines and policies, and we have continued to push ahead with the preparation of the Castle Point Plan, reaching consultation on the Issues and Options last summer.
The results of that public consultation are set out in the Issues and Options Consultation Report. The Council received 1349 responses to the consultation, of which 1285 were from residents of the Borough. The Report makes clear that there is overwhelming public support for restricting development to the urban area. The responses also indicated the importance of ensuring sustainability and energy efficiency in terms of design; people wanted to see focus on ecology, enhancing biodiversity and protecting open and green spaces together with investment in community infrastructure and the transport network.
However, at the end of December 2024, the new government published a revised National Planning Policy Framework, which, amongst other things, reset the standard methodology for calculating the government’s requirement for housing, and introduced changes to how the Green Belt should be considered in plan making. Both of these issues have presented additional challenges to the preparation of the Castle Point Plan and whilst we are working hard to address them, the extra work has meant that our timetable has fallen behind.
When we withdrew the previous plan in 2022, we were clear on the priorities for the new Castle Point Plan. It was to be based on a genuinely assessed local housing need; it would prioritise brown field and urban sites; and it would protect the Green Belt. The Council made the commitment to work with the local community to ensure their views were heard and that the Castle Point Plan would be adopted and implemented. We have not waived from those objectives and work on the Castle Point Plan continues.