The first public consultation on the new North Yorkshire local plan is set to start later this month.

Work has begun on a single local plan for the county to replace the existing plans prepared by the former borough and district councils.

The statutory document aims to ensure development is sustainable and will be used by planners to determine where new housing and commercial buildings can be built in North Yorkshire over the next 20 years.

A call for potential development sites has already been issued with hundreds of plots submitted so far.

North Yorkshire Council officers are now preparing for the first consultation exercise which aims to give the public the chance to comment on what they believe the scope of the plan should be and key issues it needs to address.

There is no opportunity to comment on the proposed development sites at this stage.
Rachael Hutton, the council’s planning policy and place manager, said in a report to members that the main purpose of the consultation was to get early views from a wide cross-section of the community and stakeholders on what the local plan should contain and the overall strategy for where new homes and jobs should be located.

The report added: “The preparation of a new local plan for North Yorkshire is an important opportunity to set out the council’s place-making and sustainable growth ambitions and to seek to meet the needs of our communities.  The issues and options consultation is the first opportunity for the council to seek views on the direction of the new local plan and will be an important stage in shaping how the plan evolves.”
Senior councillors and officers will meet next Friday to discuss the launch of the consultation, which is due to last eight weeks from May 19 to July 15.

The government has proposed changes to the local plan system, which are expected to make plans simpler, shorter and more visual.
But officers at North Yorkshire say they cannot wait for details of the changes to be announced later this year before progressing with the new plan for the county.

The report added: “Due to the amount of work already undertaken, it is important to keep up momentum, so that we can have a new plan in place for the whole area as soon as possible.  “Therefore, we cannot wait for the new plan-making system to be introduced before we launch this first major stage of consultation; the issues and options consultation.”

Although local plans for the former borough and district council areas are still being used, work on a new plan for the Selby area was stopped earlier this year.

Councillors took the decision after the government increased North Yorkshire’s new home building target from 1,300 units a year to more than 4,000.  This meant the council would need to issue a new call for sites to fulfil the new target.