East Cambridgeshire District Council decided at a meeting of its Full Council on 17 October 2024 to start preparation of a new Local Plan. This started a process due to last about 3 years involving preparation, evidence gathering, public consultation and finally adoption of a new plan in 2027.
The new Local Plan will contain policies on matters such as:
The public will get their opportunity to make suggestions, as well as comment on what is proposed.
We have not published anything yet for you to comment upon. You will get your first chance to raise your suggestions, your objections or register your support when we launch consultation in 2025. Please keep your eye on the website for details.
We know some landowners and developers will be keen to promote new sites to us for inclusion in the Local Plan. However, we are not asking for suggestions yet. We will launch a ‘call for sites’ exercise in due course, but probably not until early 2025. Please do not call the council or send us any material about suggested sites for new development. We will not accept them or hold any meetings about them before a ‘call for sites’ exercise has been launched. Any such material we receive in the meantime will not be considered.
We will keep our website up to date with timeframes.
We expect the first round of full consultation on an emerging plan to take place sometime between June and September 2025, but this will be confirmed nearer the time. There might be other limited and targeted consultation before that time.
We expect two further rounds of full public consultation to take place either later in 2025 or in 2026.
If you still have objections at that stage, you will be able to raise them with an independent Inspector in late 2026 or in 2027. The plan will hopefully be finalised by the end of 2027.
Planning officers are not taking calls or meetings about the new Local Plan at this stage. Engagement between the public (including landowners and developers) and council planning officers will only take place once the full set up stage has been completed and initial evidence gathering and consultation starts to take place. This is unlikely to take place before 2025.
We have a dedicated mailing list that you can be added to so that you can be kept informed of key stages in the process. Please email your details to planningpolicy@eastcambs.gov.uk stating that you are interested in being kept up to date with a new Local Plan. If you are a planning agent or landowner interested in submitting possible sites for development in the future, please indicate this in your email so that you are informed when a ‘call for sites’ exercise is launched.