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Chelmsford City Council

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Local Plan examination

The inspector has found that the Chelmsford Local Plan is sound.

The inspector wrote to us on 25 February 2020. The Inspector's Report says that the plan is legally compliant and sound. This is subject to a number of Main Modifications she identified in a schedule which accompanies her report.

The Inspector's Report brings the examination process to an end.

We will hold an Extraordinary Meeting of the Council on Wednesday 27 May to consider adopting the Local Plan. Due to coronavirus restrictions, this will be a virtual meeting.

We will publish the agenda and the supporting documents on Monday 18 May.

You can view the meeting online. We will publish the link to the live broadcast on Friday 22 May. You can use the link when the meeting starts at 7pm on Wednesday 27 May. 

We suggest that you test your connection in advance or allow adequate time to ensure you are able to connect to the meeting. You can read the connection requirements.

You can ask a question or make a statement to the meeting. You need to send your question or statement to us 24 hours before the start of the meeting, that is by 7pm on Tuesday 26 May. We will publish valid questions on the agenda at least six hours before the start of the meeting.

If you want to ask your question online in person, you need to let us know, and make sure you give us the email address you want us to send the virtual meeting invitation to. You will have two minutes to ask your question or make your statement, and there is a maximum of 15 minutes for all questions/statements.

Your question or statement should relate only to the agenda items for this meeting. We will not allow questions which are

  • offensive
  • substantially the same as another question
  • about exempt or confidential information.

If we can’t answer the question at the meeting, we will send a written response after the meeting.

If you have a question about the meeting process and procedure you can contact Democratic Services or call 01245 606480.

If you have a question about the Local Plan, you can contact Planning Policy or call 01245 606330.

Chelmsford gets new infrastructure funding 

A £218m Forward Funding Housing Infrastructure Fund (HIF) bid submitted for the new rail station and Chelmsford North East By-pass has been confirmed by Government. You can find out what this means for Chelmsford.


Chelmsford Garden Village gets £150,000

Chelmsford Garden Village has received support and financial backingof £150,000 from the UK Government as one of 19 new villages to receive funding through the Garden Communities Programme.


We need the Main Modifications set out in the Inspector’s Reportto make the Local Plan sound. 

They involve changes or insertions to policies and text in the Pre-Submission Local Plan that are essential to enable us to adopt the Plan. These Main Modifications replace the earlier Schedule of Proposed Main Modifications (EX047).

Some Main Modifications result in consequential changes to the Policies Map. You can see these on the  Proposed Policies Map changes (EX049). 

In addition, we are proposing a number of  Additional Modifications (EX048) to the submitted Local Plan. These do not affect the soundness of the Local Plan but are mainly factual updates of the supporting text. 

While we have been preparing the Local Plan for adoption, we have updated the Additional Modifications Schedule to include:  

  • issues raised during the consultation 
  • changes from the Inspector’s Report 
  • final corrections  
  • factual updates

We have also included small amendments to the Policies Map which have resulted from these changes.  

You should refer to the updated Additional Modifications Schedule to make sure you can see all the changes.  Councillors will also consider this at the Extraordinary Meeting of the Council on Wednesday 27 May, where they will consider adopting the Local Plan. 

The Secretary of State appointed Yvonne Wright BSc (Hons) DipTP MSc DMS MRTPI as the inspector.

The Independent Examination hearing sessions took place in November and December 2018 and ended on 13 December 2018.


What the Local Plan includes

The draft Local Plan includes:

  • around 8,800 houses on new site allocations
  • around 1,300 houses on sites not identified (windfalls)
  • around 11,700 new homes which already have planning permission
  • 10 Gypsy and Traveller pitches
  • 24 Travelling Showpeople plots
  • 725 new jobs a year
  • 55,000 square metres of business and employment space
  • protection for the green belt, valued landscapes, heritage assets, and areas for wildlife and nature conservation
  • supporting infrastructure including schools, roads, transport improvements, and community and leisure facilities
  • planning polices which we will use to determine planning applications

  

Evidence base

The evidence base contains the background and technical documents we used to prepare the Local Plan. These include housing, traffic, landscape and sustainability. We have also been working with our partners to understand infrastructure needs.

  

Consultation stages

We have carried out four stages of consultation on the Local Plan.

  • Issues and Options, from November 2015 to January 2016
  • Preferred Options, from March 2017 to May 2017
  • Pre-Submission, from January 2018 to March 2018
  • Main Modifications, from August 2019 to September 2019

We carefully considered all the comments we received in the first three consultations, and used them to progress the Local Plan to submission stage. We have sent all the comments we received on the Main Modifications to the Planning Inspector holding the Examination.

You can:

  

Local Development Scheme

We have set out what Local Plan documents we will prepare and a timetable in our  Local Development Scheme.

   

Our newsletters

Each of our newsletters gives an overview of the different stages of developing the new Local Plan.

You can download our:


  

You can also view the Local Plan Examination documents.

  

Contact Planning Policy

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Last updated: 20 May 2020

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