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According to their website, Bristol City Council will be publishing a draft of the emerging Local Plan Review for consultation on 18th March 2019. The consultation period will run for just under 10 weeks, terminating on 24th May 2019. 

It is understood that the forthcoming document will be a ‘Pre-Submission Draft’ of the Local Plan Review, which will include detailed planning policies, site allocations and a full evidence base.  CSJ Planning advise that any developers and interested parties in the Bristol area make time to look through the forthcoming draft as there are likely to be some fairly significant changes to the planning policy environment proposed. As a company, we have significant experience in preparing representations on emerging planning policy and would welcome enquiries from any developers or interested stakeholders. 

An initial consultation document for the Local Plan Review was published last February and consulted on between 19th February and 13th April 2018. This document contained proposals for how the current Local Plan would be rewritten and identified areas of the city where new development would be targeted over the plan period. It can be viewed on the Bristol City Council website along with the subsequent Summary of Responses published in June 2018. 

Of particular note, the February 2018 document set out proposals to change the green belt boundary, identified areas for higher density ‘Urban Living’ and proposed significant changes to policy concerning specialist student accommodation (ULH6). The latter involves the introduction of affordable housing on student development and a presumption that specialist student housing will be located within established university campuses. It will be interesting to see which changes are carried forward to the forthcoming Pre-Submission Draft. 

When adopted, the new Local Plan Review will replace / supersede the current raft of Local Plan Documents (Core Strategy, Site Allocations and Development Management Policies & Central Area Plan) and will be presented as a single, consolidated document.

12 March 2019

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