Hart District Council submits revised Local Plan to Government Inspection

FACE IT has been notified that on 28th March 2013 Hart District Council submitted the Hart District Local Plan: Core Strategy 2011-2029 and supporting documents to the Secretary of State under Regulation 22 of the Town and Country Planning (Local Planning) (England) Regulations 2012.

This follows the ‘Publication’ stage which ran from Wednesday 14th November 2012 to Monday 7th January 2013 including consultation on the Pre-Submission Draft, during which representations to the plan were received.

A number of changes have been made to the plan as a result of the Public Consultation and the submission includes two schedules of changes – minor and main, and a number of supporting documents.

All submission documents are available on the Council’s website at www.hart.gov.uk.

The Core Strategy will now be the subject of an examination by an independent inspector appointed by the Secretary of State. 

There is as yet no date set for the examination hearings. Details of the examination time, date and venue will be made available on the Council’s website in due course.

Thank You For Your Support

The period allocated for responses to the draft Local Plan in the ‘Public Consultation’ closed on 07 January 2013.  Many thanks to those of you who supported the consultation by making your own submissions to the council.

In total over 550 responses were received. The main concern for local residents was the proposed growth in new housing and its impact on infrastructure and the environment. There was also support for the plan, especially from those opposed to development at Grove Farm, (east of Hitches Lane Fleet), and at Winchfield, which the Council rejected as areas for major development.

After great local efforts, the proposed Local Plan now shares new housing development across Hart District – not concentrated around Fleet, Crookham Village and Church Crookham as in the earlier draft. We sincerely hope that the volume and quality of responses considered by Hart District Council and the consequent revisions to the Plan will show that the Local Plan has a large body of support and is largely regarded as ‘sound’.

The independent planning inspector will consider all of the comments received and check that the plan follows all the necessary rules.

The aim is for the plan to be adopted by the end of this year.

There needs to be a Local Plan published as soon as possible, to dictate how many houses are built and where. While Hart has no plan, there is a danger that developers will be able to build almost anywhere they wish.

If the Local Plan fails the examination phase and is not published, this would allow developers to build where they wish almost immediately. But if it is approved and adopted, the developers will have to wait 15 years before they can try again.

FACE-IT Welcomes draft local plan – read our press release here

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