The Local Plan will address local housing need, the economy, environmental considerations including the climate emergency, community infrastructure as well as strategic infrastructure needs, and is being prepared with the climate emergency at the centre of our thinking. Specifically the Local Plan is a document produced by Winchester City Council in its role as the local planning authority, to set out what development may be allowed up to 2038. It does not cover the whole of the district because the South Downs National Park Authority has responsibility for planning matters in a large part of the council’s area (around 40% of the district) and they have made their own plan.   

The plan will make site specific allocations to meet identified development needs of the future. Once we have fully engaged with the local community and it has been through all of its formal stages, it will be used to assess planning applications and appeals. 

The Regulation 19 Plan represents the Local Plan as the council intends to submit to the Planning Inspectorate for their consideration. 

It is the last stage of developing the plan before submitting the draft Local Plan to the Inspector appointed by the Secretary of State to hold an independent examination of the Plan.

The representations made at Regulation 18 consultation have been taken into consideration in preparing this final version and at this stage the plan is published for any further comments to be made on its soundness only, prior to its submission to the Planning Inspectorate.   Please see FAQ response on the tests of soundness.

At Regulation 19 stage the Inspector is looking to see if the plan is ’sound’:

There are four tests of soundness.  Plans are ‘sound’ if they are:

(a) Positively prepared – providing a strategy which, as a minimum, seeks to meet the area’s objectively assessed needs; and is informed by agreements with other authorities, so that unmet need from neighbouring areas is accommodated where it is practical to do so and is consistent with achieving sustainable development;

(b) Justified – an appropriate strategy, taking into account the reasonable alternatives, and based on proportionate evidence;

(c) Effective – deliverable over the plan period, and based on effective joint working on cross-boundary strategic matters that have been dealt with rather than deferred, as evidenced by the statement of common ground; and

(d) Consistent with national policy – enabling the delivery of sustainable development in accordance with the policies in this Framework and other statements of national planning policy, where relevant.

These tests of soundness will be applied to non-strategic policies in a proportionate way, taking into account the extent to which they are consistent with relevant strategic policies for the area.

The key topics of the plan cover

• Carbon neutrality and designing for low carbon infrastructure
• High quality well designed places and living well
• Sustainable transport and active travel
• Biodiversity and the natural environment
• The historic environment
• Homes for all
• Creating a vibrant economy
• Site allocations for development (Winchester Town, South Hampshire Urban Areas and Market Towns and Rural Area)

Under the current planning regulations, every five years all local planning authorities in England and Wales are required by the Government to review their Local Plan and to make sure that it takes a long enough look ahead in terms of planning for the development needed in the district. That includes reviewing its policies in the light of changes in what the Government requires of us as well as changes in circumstances locally and more widely along the implications of COVID-19 in the changes to the way that we live and work. All these factors will tell us what we need to plan for in relation to housing, jobs, shopping, infrastructure, community facilities, protecting our rich built and natural heritage.