Pre-submission plan 2040 (reg 19) – July 2024

The new North Somerset Local Plan identifies where development can and cannot take place in North Somerset. It guides investment for new housing, jobs, transport and community facilities over the next 15 years.

A new pre-submission plan 2040 was agreed by the Executive Committee on 17 July 2024 for consultation. This was based on our local housing target and no strategic allocations in the green belt. 

It also responded to comments received through the previous regulation 19 consultation in 2023 as well as an amendment to the plan period to 2025-2040.

We will not be going ahead with our consultation on the pre-submission plan 2040 in September as we had originally planned. This is due to the launch of the consultation on the governments proposed planning reforms on 30 July.

We will now review our pre-submission plan and take into account the proposed reforms. We will be working to progress a revised plan as quickly as possible.

SHLAA

The starting point when considering additional development sites is the Strategic Housing Land Availability Assessment (SHLAA). This contains a map and schedule of all sites put forward by developers and landowners for housing, employment and other uses. It is used to identify allocations in local plans or where additional capacity is required.  

We have created a map of all the sites within the SHLAA that have been submitted through the plan-making process. This could be either through:

  • ‘call for sites’ exercises or;
  • various consultations on the local plan. 

There is also a schedule of all the sites. The map and the schedule group the sites by category based on the sequential steps to finding new sites as set out in the spatial strategy. 

This involves:

  • first assessing sites outside the Green Belt, but well related to the towns then; 
  • assessing sites outside the Green Belt, but well related to the larger villages

The approach would then assess sites in the Green Belt well related to the towns, followed by sites in the Green Belt well related to the larger villages. Lastly, sites elsewhere in the district would be considered.