Crawley Borough Council are in the process of reviewing their Local Plan to ensure that it is up to date, consistent with national policy and addresses local issues which may have developed since the Local Plan was adopted on the 16th December 2015. The Local Plan contains strategic planning policies and principles to help shape the future of the town and wider borough and are used in the determination of planning applications. In particular, it sets out the amount and location of housing and employment development, supports the growth of the town centres as a new neighbourhood, makes sure that the right infrastructure is in place to meet the needs of the growing population and protects the important historic assets and open spaces that are valued by residents and visitors.
National policy requires Local Plan policies and spatial strategies to be reviewed to assess whether they need updating at least once every 5 years which is why Crawley Borough Council began their process of reviewing the Local Plan in 2020. Since then, they have run 3 separate public consultation periods on the draft Local Plan, with the most recent running between the 9th May and 20th June 2023. The feedback from these consultation events will have helped shape the draft Submission Local Plan which was submitted to the Secretary of State for its independent examination on the 31st July 2023.
This independent examination will include hearings held in public and led by the Planning Inspectorate. The Planning Inspectorate will consider the soundness of the Local Plan and if found sound, the Council will be able to formally adopt it, meaning that its strategic planning policies and principles can be used in the determination of planning applications by the Council. If adopted, the updated Local Plan will alter the policy requirements that development must comply with and will ultimately impact on development proposals.
All of the documents submitted to the Secretary of State can be found on Crawley Borough Council’s website at https://crawley.gov.uk/planning/planning-policy/local-plan
If you have interests in Crawley, and would like some assistance relating to this or your development, get in touch with our team to see how we can help.
