Bristol is a rapidly growing city, one of the fastest growing areas in England and Wales. Our population has grown by 10 per cent in the last decade and we anticipate it reaching 550,000 by 2050.
Having a local plan is central to any city’s preparation for the future. Our next local plan would guide development and growth in Bristol from 2025 – 2040.
We need to be intentional about how we design our city. Housing has become increasingly unaffordable, with renting and buying a house out of reach for many. Building more affordable homes remains a priority for our city.
A local plan is a vision for a city’s future and sets out the policies which individual applications are then assessed against. It is a guide for the delivery of a wide range of development in the city and a spotlight to where new homes and future jobs, as well as health and energy infrastructure, would be best located.
Writing and refreshing an entire city’s local plan is a detailed process and the new draft plan has been worked on for several years. We must have a fully revised local plan to guide the development of our future city, and be purposeful, about where best to locate homes, employment and leisure space. The good news is that we are progressing towards a new local plan for the period to 2040.
At the end of October, Full Council approved Bristol’s new draft local plan for publication. Now that the draft plan is published, we are inviting Bristol residents as well as the many stakeholders involved to send us representations on the new draft plan over the next ten weeks.
Any representations must relate to a specific policy or proposal in the draft plan. Your representations will be considered by the council first. Representations will then be reviewed by the Planning Inspectorate, which examines local plans. The inspector may then ask the council if there are any changes which it thinks should be made in response to any representations.
You can read the publication version of the draft local plan here.
When this process (known as Regulation 19 pre-submission) closes in January 2024, the representations will be delivered to the government’s Planning Inspectorate to carefully review the evidence that our approach is based on to make certain it meets with the rules on local plans. Once a local plan is adopted after that by Full Council in 2025, that will officially replace the current plan agreed in 2014.
I would like to thank all who have submitted comments and the cross-party working group for your feedback to date that has formed such an important part in developing a draft plan that is right for Bristol.
You can submit your representations to the council on the draft plan from 21 November until 26 January 2024 on our website or by send them via email: blp@bristol.gov.uk or by post at: Strategic City Planning Team (CH), Bristol City Council, PO Box 3399, Bristol BS1 9NE