Aims and objectives
The consultation document sets out options and opportunities for meeting the development needs of the Dorset Council area over the next 17 years. It will help form the Dorset Council Local Plan which will be used when making planning decisions in Dorset.
The Local Plan will be Dorset Council’s response to the Government’s commitment to addressing the shortage of housing, to enable economic growth and deliver essential infrastructure to enable this growth. It will also set out how planning decisions will seek to conserve and enhance the environment, including measures to address climate change.
We are seeking feedback on the identified options and opportunities to help us prepare for the next round of the local plan production process.
This consultation document includes a proposed vision and strategic priorities for Dorset, providing a framework for:
- An overarching strategy for achieving a significant boost in the delivery of new homes, including a significant number of opportunity sites of varying sizes. The strategy also proposes a more flexible approach to smaller scale development opportunities adjacent to the built-up area of the listed, more sustainable settlements. In the longer term, delivery will be enhanced through the identification of one or more ‘new towns’.
- An overarching strategy for enabling economic growth across the area to provide jobs for those who live in Dorset. The focus of this strategy will be on protecting important key employment sites and allocating new areas at appropriate locations close to the more sustainable settlements. Another part of the strategy may involve a requirement for large scale residential development sites to provide employment space as part of the development. Where a proposed employment use needs a specific location, this will be enabled through a flexible policy.
- An approach to enabling town centre regeneration and to encouraging development on brownfield sites.
- An approach and sites for meeting the needs of the Gypsy, Traveller and Travelling Show-people community.
- Identifying broad areas where there is technical feasibility for locating wind, stand-alone solar and battery storage facilities to help support the provision of renewable energy.
- An underlying commitment running throughout the final Local Plan, to conserve and enhance the natural environment, address climate change and contribute to healthy places.
Government expects us to use their Standard Method to assess local housing needs. We are responsible through the local plan for establishing a housing requirement and preparing the strategies and policies for addressing this requirement. We have gathered our own evidence around the need for employment land and traveller pitches and plots. The proposed approaches that we set out in this document are a starting point for a discussion as to how we could meet the growth needs of Dorset. This consultation provides an opportunity for alternative proposals to be suggested. The final draft Local Plan must be prepared with the aim of meeting the growth needs of Dorset whilst conserving its highly valued natural and built environment.