The intention of Local Plans is that they are agreed in consultation with local communities, been through a process of public inspection, then fully adopted by the planning authority. The Plan is then used by developers to identify sites that are “ripe” for development, and then proceed to put together proposals to meet the requirements set out for the site.
Dover District Council has issued a very useful guide to how you can get involved in planning, which is worth looking at as it sets out the steps in the process. The special relevance here is that many residents are concerned that these processes have not been fully adhered to on development proposals they are concerned with.
On that basis, if a planning application is made, you might reasonably expect the site to feature in the Dover District Council Local Plan, but does it?
- If it does, then the issues at stake are not usually about whether the development proposal is allowable on the site, but about the detail of the proposal and meeting the stated local needs, but
- If it isn’t, there is a whole series of questions you might reasonably ask yourself to determine “How has this got to this point in the planning process?”