Bracknell Forest Council has announced that it is publishing feedback from the Government’s planning inspectors regarding the draft local plan.
The local plan set out where the council could begin to develop new homes, businesses and facilities in the next 15 years, and inspectors have no said that the plan is legally compliant and will only need some straightforward alterations to soundly allocate and manage development across the borough until 2037.
The main modification that the inspectors noted was the removal of a proposed garden village, with this providing around 2,000 new homes, a neighbourhood centre, primary school and public accessible green space, as well as a new Science and Innovation Park. Despite the removal of this from the local plan, the inspectors have confirmed that this would not undermine the wider plan, whilst the borough will still have a strategy to meet its housing needs.
Councillor Chris Turrell, Executive Member for Planning and Transport, said;
“Naturally, it is disappointing that the plan is not able to be adopted as it stands, especially as there were extremely important economic reasons why the Jealott’s Hill development was put forward.
“However, we are grateful to planning inspectors for their invaluable comments and the recognition that we have worked hard to create a plan that meets the future needs of our residents and businesses.
“We’re pleased they recognise it is legally compliant and could be adopted subject to some straightforward modifications. We are now working through all the recommendations and will soon consult on the changes to capture residents’ feedback.
“I’d like to thank everyone who has taken the time to comment on the plan so far and want to assure our residents and businesses that we are working as quickly as possible to get the right plan adopted for our borough.”
The next step will see the council working alongside the inspectors to alter the plan and agree on the ways that the modifications are worded, before the developments go to a public consultation.
