The Local Plan is a crucial document which will affect planning decisions for years to come. Please do take part in Tandridge District Council's Local Plan consultation which runs until the end of 17 August.
To read the consultation documents and other information: click here
You can take part by:
Filling in the online survey: click here
E-mailing comments to Localplan@tandridge.gov.uk
Post: If you complete a paper survey or want to write a letter, please send it to The Planning Policy Team, Council Offices, 8 Station Road East, Oxted RH8 0BT.
The consultation asks for your comments on the seven objectives of the Plan. It also asks for comments on four potential development strategy options. The council’s preferred option is Option 4. It is a new strategic development site at Redhill Aerodrome, anticipated to provide around 2,250 homes, infrastructure and key worker homes for East Surrey Hospital, as well as capacity-led dispersed growth across settlements throughout the district.
Under the government's Local Plan process, landowners and developers submit land for consideration from which the council has to assess potential development sites. These have been published as part of the consultation material and you can see and comment on the sites submitted.
The government requires every local planning authority to have an up-to-date Local Plan setting out where housing, employment and other development should be built. It has given Tandridge a high housing target of 819 homes per year plus an additional 20% buffer for the first five years which is 983 homes per year. This compares with 125 per year in the existing Local Plan.
As a result of the government's planning reforms weakening Green Belt policy and its high housing targets, the district is now coming under extreme pressure from speculative planning applications on high quality countryside. An up to date Local Plan should allow the council more local control over development and hopefully stop, or at least greatly reduce, these speculative applications.
A Local Plan also allows the council to specify a percentage of affordable housing which developers must include in new developments. The aim is to have a Tandridge Local Plan ready by the time the new East Surrey Council takes over next April. That's because there is no confirmed timeline for when the new councils will have an across Surrey development plan and it's important Tandridge District is not left without an up to date planning strategy, put together locally, in the meantime.
