East Staffordshire gears up for 2043 local plan

Councillors in Burton are expected to kick-start East Staffordshire Borough Council’s ‘simplified, shorter’ long term development strategy with a call for sites in July.

The authority is poised to approve a timetable for the creation and adoption of a new local plan for the area at a cabinet meeting due to be held later today.

East Staffordshire’s existing plan expires in 2031, but hopes to submit a fresh document – intended to define a development strategy for the area – by the end of 2028.

The strategy will set out the overall number of homes and amount of employment land required to meet government targets until 2043, covering the entire geographical area of East Staffordshire – even though the local authority may no longer exist in its current administrative form due to local government reorganisation plans.

“A new local plan is expected to contain a vision for the area, spatial strategy, up to 10 measurable outcomes to guide development of the area, site allocations and a policies map,” said a paper, due to go before cabinet this evening,

“The authority is required to commence plan-making no later than April 2027. The Local Plan currently has a plan period ending in 2031. In order to retain as much control as possible in decision taking it is necessary to maintain a 5 year housing land supply, and this will be increasingly difficult as the plan ages further. It is therefore expedient to commence the preparation of a new local plan.”

A future economic regeneration strategy, expected to be included in the document, will be completed by 2028 along with a strategy for open space and leisure.

If approved at cabinet today, a formal notice of intention to commence local plan preparation will be published by 30 June.

A live stream of this evening’s cabinet meeting will be broadcast by East Staffordshire Borough Council from 6.30pm.