Have your say on new Local Plan

South Gloucestershire Council has started a consultation on the new Local Plan, which will set out how the development proposed in the Joint Spatial Plan for the West of England will be delivered in South Gloucestershire. The consultation will run until 30th April and documents are available to view on the Council’s website at www.southglos.gov.uk/newlocalplanfeb2018.

A hard copy of the consultation document is available to view from 8.45am - 5pm Mondays to Wednesdays and 8.45am - 4.30pm Thursdays and Fridays, at the Council’s One-Stop Shops, which are located at:

• Patchway One Stop Shop, The Patchway Hub, Rodway Road, Patchway BS34 5PE
• Kingswood One Stop Shop, Civic Centre, High Street, Kingswood BS15 9TR
• Yate One Stop Shop (access via West Walk), Kennedy Way, Yate BS37 4DQ

There will also be public drop-in events. The nearest to us is 6-8pm on Tuesday 20 March at the Ridgewood Community Centre, Yate (BS37 4AF). Details of all the events are available at www.southglos.gov.uk/newlocalplanfeb2018.

Part 2 of the document introduces the proposed strategy for delivering the development:

• building out the developments already allocated in the council's Core Strategy
• maximising the use of brownfield land within the urban areas
• building the 5 large scale Strategic Development Locations set out in the Joint Spatial Plan for the West of England (Coalpit Heath, North West and West of Yate, Thornbury, Buckover and Charfield)
• smaller scale development in the rural areas. 

Yate is one of the areas being looked at for maximising the use of brownfield land in urban areas and the question about how to approach development in the rural areas affects all our villages. The consultation document also sets out what is happening with the Strategic Development Locations and how the local communities will be involved further but does not ask specific questions around those.

The council would prefer you to use the response form available online to make comments. If you are unable to do so, you can submit comments by email to PlanningPolicy@southglos.gov.uk or by post. There is no need to submit comments in multiple different ways.