Planning Blog Update - April 2023 Edition

If you own land, are a developer or live and work in the districts of North Kesteven, West Lindsey or anywhere in the City of Lincoln then this document will affect you and how your local community changes over the next 20 years.  

Fytche-Taylor Planning Ltd. promoted a number of potential development sites for our clients through the local plan review and are pleased to confirm that many of these have been taken forward as land allocations in the adopted plan and are now allocated sites.  

The local plan addresses a broad range of issues that affects all of our lives, such as climate change, housing, employment, shopping, health and more.

Changes in the new plan include:

• Climate change: The plan is ambitious in trying to address climate change in a number of policies, including a requirement for net-zero-carbon homes and a framework for considering renewable energy infrastructure.
• Retail: In recognition of some of the challenges facing retail the Draft Local Plan seeks to protect more local retail centres in rural areas; in the face of uncertainty in both the industry and from national policy changes allowing shops to change use without the need for planning permission.
• Housing: Reflecting the Government’s new housing needs methodology and the Central Lincolnshire’s housing and economic needs assessment evidence, the housing requirement of the plan has been reduced from 1,540 homes each year under the 2017 Local Plan to between 1,060 and 1,325 homes each year in the new plan, meeting the overall requirement of 29,150 dwellings across the plan period from 2018 to 2040.
• RAF Scampton: A new draft policy, designed to safeguard the future of RAF Scampton once the site has been decommissioned, has been included. It highlights RAF Scampton as an ‘opportunity area’ and requiring a masterplan prior to any major development. The policy aims to provide a framework which will enhance and protect the area whilst remaining adaptive and responsive to future decisions on the decommission and disposal of the base.
• Settlement Hierarchy and Site Allocations: Following a change in National Policy, sites for 10 or more homes within small and medium villages are specifically allocated which remove the need to apply growth percentages and gives greater certainty to communities.

The new Central Lincsolnshire Local Plan extends to over 200 pages and includes new policies that will affect all landowners and developers in Central Lincolnshire, including the requirement for more energy efficient homes and on-site renewable power generation for all housing developments.

If you have never heard of them before, then in short these are the plans that are used to make decisions on where new houses, shops, roads and a range of employment sites will go in future, as well as setting a broad range of other targets and controls that will directly affect how an area can change and grow.  If you've ever played Sim City, then it's a bit like that, but the real-life version!  The planning system involves making decisions about the future of our cities, towns and countryside. This is vital to balance our desire to develop the areas where we live and work with ensuring the surrounding environment isn't negatively affected for everyone. It includes considering the sustainable needs of future communities.  

The Central Lincolnshire Local Plan Team is responsible for producing the Central Lincolnshire Local Plan.

The current Central Lincolnshire Local Plan was adopted by the Central Lincolnshire Joint Strategic Planning Committee (CLJSPC) in  April 2023 and replaced the previous Local Plan and all previous planning policies used by the City of Lincoln, West Lindsey and North Kesteven Districts.

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