Re: statutory duty to prepare a local plan

Planning Advisory Service (PAS)

Open group | Started - July 2012 | Last activity - This week

andrew waterhouse, modified 11 Years ago.

statutory duty to prepare a local plan

New Member Posts: 6 Join Date: 20/10/11 Recent Posts

I'm trying to work out what the legal status is of local plans as established under the 2012 Act. Specifically: Are they statutory? I guess they are as they are what would have been DPDs But is there a legal duty on local authorities to prepare and maintain a local plan. I seem to recall that under the 2004 Act, only the preparation of Core Strategies were mandatory. How has this been translated to new style local plans? Andy

Former Member, modified 11 Years ago.

Re: statutory duty to prepare a local plan

Hi Andrew, Not sure what 2012 Act you are referring to? Localism Act was 2011 although there are 2012 Regs. My understanding is that the 2004 Act remains the base planning Act (the Localism Act simply made amendments to it). As such, the statutory duty to 'keep under review matters that affect development etc' is S13, S17 establishes LDDs (as relating to development) and S37 defines LPAs. Regulation 6 confirms that references to LDDs in regulation 5 should be taken to mean a Local Plan. I'm sure there is another thread about what you can call your plan e.g. core strategy, local plan, district plan etc. All a bit confusing - would be helpful if CLG published a consolidated Act including all amendments. I would be keen to know if my understanding is correct!