Delay, delay, delay seems to be the story of the Winchester City Council’s Local Plan and was highlighted in an article appearing in the Hampshire Chronicle last week. See https://www.hampshirechronicle.co.uk/news/23725912.green-party-concern-winchester-city-councils-local-plan-delay/
In response, Green Party Councillor Danny Lee made the following statement..
“The council’s decision will mean lower environmental standards will continue for longer for all developments until the end of 2025. It was expected the new plan would originally be in place from August 2024. All developments, including large developments, will continue to be assessed against the current Local Plan.
“The very high public response rate to last year’s consultation for the draft new Winchester Local Plan in combination with a raft of new Government legislation has led to this decision by the council.
“This difficult position is beyond helpful in the face of the current climate, nature and economic crises with the urgent need for developments in the right places to better environmental standards.
“A key question now is, can more rigorous environmental requirements be applied to developments before the delayed new Local Plan is approved by Central Government? After all, it is not impossible to find ourselves in a similar delaying situation in 2025 for reasons beyond the council’s control.”
Rest assured that both our Councillors, Danny and Malcolm Wallace, will be following this through, our City and surrounding area deserve to know what lies ahead.
