FAQs

A Local Plan is a legal document that Councils are required to prepare, which sets out the future land use and planning policies for the area over a set period of time. Stratford-on-Avon and Warwick District Councils are working together to create a new South Warwickshire Local Plan for the two areas which we refer to as South Warwickshire. This is the first time that we will have a plan for South Warwickshire, and it will ensure that there is a consistent approach to planning and building across both areas over the years to come.

As the local planning authorities for Stratford-on-Avon and Warwick Districts, it is our legal responsibility to ensure that we prepare and keep up-to-date a local plan that manages development proposals and ensures that we meet our future development needs in as sustainable a way as possible. This does mean building more homes and providing more land for employment. It also means addressing issues around infrastructure and tackling climate change.

In preparing the local plan we must take account of:

• Legal requirements such as the Duty to Co-operate
• National planning policy and guidance
• Technical evidence
• The views of stakeholders, businesses and our communities

There is a statutory process that the preparation of all Local Plans have to comply with, general guidance on plan-making is available on the following government website: https://www.gov.uk/guidance/plan-making

As this Plan is being prepared on behalf of both Stratford-on-Avon and Warwick District Councils, we have set up a joint South Warwickshire Local Plan Advisory Group. This Group is made up of elected councillors from both Councils, and will have a key role in the development of the Plan throughout the plan-making process. While there will be some key stages of Local Plan preparation that require formal approval by the Full Council of each authority, a joint Executive Committee has been created which is made up of Councillors from both Councils. This Committee will make many of the decisions relating to the South Warwickshire Local Plan, and these decisions will be binding on both Councils.

The geography of South Warwickshire means that Stratford-on-Avon and Warwick Districts have a strong relationship in relation to infrastructure (M40/A46/rail links/etc), the economy (JLR, Tourism, commuting), population migration, social and cultural offerings, and environmental assets (such as the River Avon and canal network). For these reasons there is a strong planning case for closer working on strategic planning issues. A single plan will enable us to tackle the strategic and cross-boundary issues together to create a strong strategic framework for the area.

Given these economic, social and geographic synergies between the two Districts and the fact that both Councils are keen to review their adopted Local Plan/Core Strategy, it makes sense to work together to produce a single plan that covers the whole of South Warwickshire.

Councils are required to review their Local Plans every five years. The Stratford-on-Avon District Core Strategy was adopted in 2016 and the Warwick District Local Plan was adopted in 2017. As such, there is a need for both Councils to review their Plans. The timetable for future stages of the South Warwickshire Local Plan can be found on the South Warwickshire Local Plan timetable page.

The new Local Plan for South Warwickshire is expected to replace the strategic policies within the existing adopted Plans which run to 2031 (Stratford-on-Avon Core Strategy) and 2029 (Warwick Local Plan). It is anticipated that the more detailed policies will be saved for a period of time and then reviewed at a later date in a more detailed plan or plans.

Community and stakeholder involvement will be crucial in developing the Plan, and there will be a number of opportunities for people to contribute at the various stages of the preparation of the plan.

The Preferred Options has been prepared in anticipation of and in alignment with the revised NPPF. The Preferred Options Spatial Growth Strategy accommodates the Housing and Economic Development Needs Assessment's (HEDNA's) Census-based housing figures with sufficient flexibility to accommodate the updated housing figures in the new Standard Method.

Links to the HEDNA and further advice can be found here: Housing & Economic Development Needs Assessment (HEDNA) - Covering Coventry and Warwickshire and Further Advice on HEDNA.

The English Devolution White Paper ​​English Devolution White Paper​: Power and partnership: Foundations for growth - GOV.UK sets out the government's intended approach to accelerate and standardise the processes by which it passes powers, funding and programmes from Westminster to local areas.

The government has made clear in briefing local authorities on the proposed local government reorganisation changes that preparation of local plans should continue without delay.

As such, work on the SWLP will continue to progress as a priority.

Regardless of the outcomes of the local government reorganisation, even if Stratford District and Warwick District Councils cease to exist in the future, the SWLP will still form the local plan for the area and be used to guide development and determine future planning applications under any new local government arrangement.

The first "Scoping" consultation in 2021 asked about the broad shape the SWLP should take and the topics it should cover. The 2023 "Issues and Options" consultation looked in more detail at each topic, identifying the key issues faced in South Warwickshire and presenting options for how these could be approached. This next round of consultation, "Preferred Options", further narrows this down to a set of draft policies and policy directions, and a proposed spatial growth strategy.

Part 1 of the Plan will provide a policy framework for the delivery of sustainable development across the South Warwickshire area up to 2050. Part 1 sets out the Spatial Growth Strategy and strategic policies for the area to deliver sustainable development. Part 2 of the plan will complement Part 1 and will contain the remaining detailed policies, or those policies deemed specific to a local area.

There are some exceptions to this, however, and several policy topics that would typically fall within Part 2 of the plan have been transferred to this Part 1.

Further detail around the proposed contents of the Part 1 plan can be found in Chapter 12 of the 2023 Issues and Options Consultation document: Issues and Options Consultation document.

The SWLP Preferred Options document comprises a number of draft policies and draft policy directions. Draft policies contain details of the subject matter and clearly set out the requirements of what the policy would like to achieve. The draft policy directions signal the direction of travel the final policy will take and give an indication of the content and aspiration of the policy to be drafted at Regulation 19 stage. The level of detail is not as advanced in these policy directions compared to the draft policies.

A Strategic Growth Location is a large site or an identified cluster of sites adjacent to an existing settlement or employment location which, when grouped together, has the potential to deliver a strategic level of growth.

A Spatial Growth Priority Area is a buffer distance which is a straight-line distance from a number of features that align with the preferred spatial growth strategy of "Sustainable Travel and Economy". Proposals have been considered as to whether they are within Priority Area 1, 2 or 3 which represent increased distances from the features as set out in table 4.1 of the Emerging Growth Strategy Topic Paper.

One of the core functions of the South Warwickshire Local Plan is to determine where we should locate the homes and employment land that we need, and conversely, to define areas in which growth should be more controlled. It is important that we make sure development happens in the most sustainable locations - places that work best for people, for businesses and for the environment. This will only happen if we plan where growth should happen, rather than relying on ad hoc responses to planning applications.

At the point of the Preferred Options consultation, the Spatial Growth Strategy is emerging. It is important to note that more potential growth locations are being presented at this stage than are needed for South Warwickshire. Following the Preferred Options consultation, the Strategy will be further refined, taking into account consultation responses and other emerging evidence.

Locations featuring in the Spatial Growth Strategy can be explored in detail on our interactive map. 

All of the sites being considered for the SWLP can be seen on our interactive map. You can search for addresses, site names or reference numbers, or simply click and drag to navigate and zoom into the area you are most interested in.

You can also click on a particular site to bring up a pop-up window with further information about that site. When the consultation is live, there will be a link to take you directly to the correct section of the Preferred Options consultation document to make your comments.

A new settlement has the potential to accommodate approximately 6,000-10,000 dwellings (minimum), as a significant proportion of South Warwickshire's growth needs. New settlements need to be developed to a suitable minimum size to provide the required infrastructure for substantial internalisation of trips.

You are welcome to read and respond to as much or as little of the document as you like. We appreciate that this Preferred Options consultation document is lengthy, and that many of the topics are quite specialist in nature. It is perfectly acceptable to concentrate on topics that are of particular interest to you, or where you have knowledge that will help us as we prepare the SWLP. If you don't have an opinion on a particular topic, please just leave those questions blank.

No, anyone can respond. We would like to hear from as many people as possible, whatever their connection to South Warwickshire.

There may well be topics that you feel are relevant but are not covered. Each chapter ends with an opportunity for you to provide general comments, so feel free to add your thoughts to whichever chapter that you feel is appropriate. It's worth double checking whether this is a topic we are proposing to 'save' for the Part 2 plan, details of which can be found in Chapter 12 of the 2023 Issues and Options Consultation document. There will also be topics which are important, but which are not within the scope of a Local Plan, or outside of a Council's control.

The consultation responses will be assessed by the SWLP team. This will help us to understand which options are most appropriate for South Warwickshire, as well as alerting us to any issues or constraints that may affect the proposals at this stage of the Plan making process. The consultation responses form one piece of evidence which will be considered alongside evidence from other sources to help us reach a proposed set of draft policies and a single spatial growth strategy. Consultation responses will be available to view in full online.

The SWLP team have gathered evidence from a range of different sources to help suggest possible options. This includes responses to the previous rounds of consultation, talks with specialists for each topic area, commissioning evidence from experts, and conducting research in-house. A significant amount of evidence has been presented for this preferred options stage, however this is still an ongoing process. The evidence base for the SWLP can be found here: Technical Evidence.

A key part of the SWLP evidence base is a Sustainability Appraisal (SA). This piece of work by specialist, independent consultants will assess each policy option, each spatial growth option, each potential new settlement location, and potential growth at a number of settlements in South Warwickshire. For each of these options, the SA considers the impact on a wide range of environmental, landscape, heritage, public health, community and economic factors. The findings of the SA will be considered by the SWLP team as we refine the current set of draft policies/policy directions and proposed spatial growth strategy.

The Sustainability Appraisal is currently being finalised and will be available to view on the SWLP website in due course.

The NPPF 2024 (paragraph 49) sets out the weight to be attached to an emerging local plan, which is a matter of planning judgement for the decision-maker on each application.

At this stage in the plan preparation process, the SWLP team advise the Preferred Options documentation should be given very limited weight.

The SAP remains a draft policy Site Allocations Plan | Stratford-on-Avon District Council. The focus of recent planning policy work has been on the SWLP Preferred Options.

The Council intends to publish an updated Local Development Scheme in early 2025 which will set out the future direction of the SAP.

Sites have been assessed using the Housing and Economic Land Availability Assessment (HELAA). Some sites subject to the most significant constraints have been sifted out in HELAA part A and will not be considered further; others have been further assessed as part of HELAA part B.

The sites, and the land constraints which feature in this assessment, can be explored in detail on our interactive map.

You only need to tell us if there is a change to the red line boundary or the proposed use, if you wish to withdraw the site, or if you wish to submit further information about the site. We are not asking for re-submission of sites that we already know about.

A third Call for Sites will run alongside the Preferred Options consultation. This will be targeted to sites which are:

• within or adjacent to one of the 12 potential new settlement locations
• for Gypsies and Travellers/Travelling Showpeople
• for commercial or community-led renewable energy generation.

We will not be accepting new submissions for other types of site.

Knowing what land is available for development is an important factor in developing a suitable Spatial Growth Strategy for South Warwickshire. However, to find the most sustainable locations for growth, it is important that the Spatial Growth Strategy is not led by land availability.

Call for Sites submissions, and developing the emerging Spatial Growth Strategy, are separate but parallel exercises. The land that ultimately forms the SWLP's Spatial Growth Strategy is likely to be a combination of sites put forward in Call for Sites exercises, and sites identified from other sources.

24 potential strategic growth locations and 12 potential new settlement locations feature as part of the Preferred Options consultation. More potential growth locations are identified than will be required to accommodate the level of growth required in South Warwickshire.

This approach has been taken for a variety of reasons, including:

• To allow for consideration of reasonable growth alternatives, such as through the Sustainability Appraisal process
• To allow for consideration of locations outside of the Green Belt, which is a necessary first step if the evidence suggests that there may be exceptional circumstances which justify the release of any Green Belt land
• To accommodate uncertainty over levels of growth arising from neighbouring authorities via the "Duty to Cooperate" process
• To enable further evidence to be collated on the comparative suitability of strategic sites
• To allow site promoters to demonstrate that strategic sites are deliverable
• To ensure communities are fully consulted on the implications of the emerging growth strategy.

The SWLP team is pointing all interested parties, including land promoters and developers, to the SWLP Preferred Options and welcomes submissions to the formal consultation. All the latest information regarding the SWLP progress is available at the SWLP website https://www.southwarwickshire.org.uk/swlp.

The SWLP team is not looking to meet with individual site submitters and developers/land promoters at this stage. The team will be in contact if and where further information may be required about the strategic sites, following the formal consultation period.

Whilst preparing a NDP can technically be done within the regulations before or during preparation of the emerging Local Plan, preparing a new NDP at the present time would risk the NDP becoming out of date soon after it is adopted or updated. It is likely that it would become superseded by the strategic policies and allocations in the SWLP. The Timetable for the SWLP is set out here: South Warwickshire Local Plan.

For this reason, we do not recommend that new NDPs are substantially progressed at this stage of the Local Plan making process, at least until the SWLP Regulation 22 Submission stage (expected in 2026). This is so NDPs can be prepared in general conformity with the advanced stage of the SWLP policies.

We also recognise a lot of work goes into plan preparation, they require significant resource, and can take a long time from inception to adoption. We therefore remain generally supportive of scoping and information collation exercises, and NDP area boundary designation processes, while the SWLP progresses. For information on this process, please see: Neighbourhood Planning - Locality Neighbourhood Development Planning.

No, not until the South Warwickshire Local Plan has been through examination and has been formally adopted. Any emerging Neighbourhood Plan policies need to continue to be in conformity with the adopted Warwick Local Plan or Stratford Core Strategy. However, it should be noted that Neighbourhood Plans should be aware of new evidence that is being used to help prepare the South Warwickshire Local Plan that may supersede older evidence.

There is no statutory requirement to update the NDPs after a certain time unlike the Local Plan that must be reviewed every five years. However, where policies in the NDP are considered to be out of date/inconsistent with the South Warwickshire Local Plan once adopted, the NDP policies would not be accorded significant weight in decision making on planning applications. In that situation the NDP policies would need to be reviewed to ensure consistency with the adopted Local Plan as the most recent policies will take precedence. This would not necessarily mean that the whole of the Neighbourhood Development Plan will be considered out of date, just the specific policies that are superseded by Local Plan policies.

In October 2024, Stratford DC published new guidance on the relationship between Neighbourhood Development Plans and the emerging South Warwickshire Local Pan. This document can be found here: Neighbourhood Development Plans (NDPs) and the Emerging South Warwickshire Local Plan (SWLP).

This guidance note contains some additional FAQs and further weblinks to general neighbourhood planning.