New Local Plan

Local Plan Partial Update – call for sites

A new Reading Borough Local Plan was adopted on 4^th November 2019. This document sets out our planning policies for development in Reading up to 2036, and is the main consideration in deciding planning applications.

The Local Plan replaces our previous development plans – the Core Strategy, Reading Central Area Action Plan and Sites and Detailed Policies Document – which no longer apply.

The Local Plan is accompanied by a Proposals Map, which shows the geographical extent of policies in the plan. This is available to view here (overview and key, pages A to D, pages E to G, pages H to K, pages L to N, pages O to R).

A Adoption Statement for the Local Plan and an Environmental Report Statement have been produced and are available here.

The below sections contain a brief summary of the process of production, and associated documents.  The versions of the Local Plan below have been superseded by the adopted version.

Issues and Options

Between January and March 2016, we undertook a consultation on issues and options which was the first stage of the plan. This included a sustainability appraisal (2016)

Draft Local Plan

Following on from Issues and Options, consultation on a Draft Local Plan took place between 1 May 2017 and 14 June 2017. This was accompanied by a Draft Local Plan Proposals Map (Draft Local Plan overview and key, Draft Local Plan pages A-D, Draft Local Plan pages E-G Draft Local Plan pages H-K, Draft Local Plan pages L-N and Draft Local Plan pages O-R), showing the extent of the policies in the plan, as well as a Sustainability Appraisal of the Draft Local Plan.

Pre-Submission Draft Local Plan

Consultation on a Pre-Submission Draft Local Plan took place between 30th November 2017 and 26th January 2018. This was a revised version of the Draft Local Plan. It was accompanied by a Pre-Submission Draft Local Plan Proposals Map (Pre-submission Draft Local Plan overview and key, Pre-submission Draft Local Plan pages A-D, Pre-submission Draft Local Plan pages E-G, Pre-submission Draft Local Plan pages H-K, Pre-submission Draft Local Plan pages L-N and Pre-submission Draft Local Plan pages O-R, showing the extent of the policies in the plan, as well as a Sustainability Appraisal of the Pre-Submission Draft Local Plan

Submission

The Local Plan was submitted to the Secretary of State on Thursday 29th March 2018, which marked the beginning of a process of public examination. The Submission Draft Local Plan is available to view here, and all other information associated with both the submission and the public examination itself can be found on the Local Plan Examination page.

Through the examination process, the independent inspector identified a number of modifications that needed a further period of consultation, known as main modifications. Consultation on these modifications and the accompanying sustainability appraisal  which took place between 12 June and 24 July 2019.

Inspector’s report

Following the examination process, the independent planning inspector submitted her final inspector’s report on 24th September 2019. Subject to a number of identified modifications, contained in the main modifications appendix, this found the Local Plan to be sound and legally compliant.