Local Plan Update

The proposed timetable is to take the pre-submission draft Local Plan through the political decision-making processes in early September. This will allow the Council to debate the plan, including matters raised by others. If Council agree this is the plan they wish to submit, then the statutorily required 6 week consultation can be carried out. The aspiration is to start this in mid-September and close it at the end of October. The responses will then be considered and the final draft plan with any suggested minor modifications submitted to the Planning Inspectorate by 31 December 2026.  

The Planning Inspectorate will notify the Council of when it intends to examine the plan, known as the Examination in Public (EiP). Details of taking part in examinations can be found via Local plans: taking part in examinations - GOV.UK

In response to some of the original concerns raised by the Pause the Plan group, we updated the timetable for the next phase of public engagement. This has refined the date from ‘summer 2026’ to starting in September 2026. This allows for the following:

• consideration of the initial outcomes of local government reorganisation which are expected to be made public in July
• additional time to finalise the extensive range of supporting evidence
• further liaison with the Cambridgeshire and Peterborough Combined Authority on progress with their A141 and St Ives transport improvements scheme for which an update is also scheduled for September
• avoidance of a clash with the main summer holiday season for public consultation
• sufficient time to meet the nationally set deadline of 31 December for submission under the current legislation. 

Plan-making legislation is changing. A new system was introduced through the Levelling up and Regeneration Act 2023 with the new regulations coming into effect on 25 March 2026. The government have set a transitional period where both the old and new systems run in parallel. Councils have until 31 December 2026 to submit their plans under the existing system. 

Failure to submit the Local Plan by this deadline would necessitate restarting the Local Plan under the new legislation. Doing this would mean abandoning much of the work and outcomes of public engagement completed in the last 3 years and risks leaving our community without an up-to-date Local Plan for longer. As the adopted local plan is over 5 years old the Council would be required to start a new local plan by 31 December 2026 under the new system regardless of the outcomes of local government reorganisation. 

Without an up-to-date Local Plan, for decision making, the ‘presumption in favour of sustainable development’ remains, known informally as the ‘Tilted Balance’ as per paragraph 11d of the National Planning Policy Framework (NPPF). 

All statutorily required evidence is being prepared along with some additional optional elements to support the Local Plan and demonstrate to the independent Planning Inspector that the strategy, policies and site allocations are justified and deliverable. 

The evidence covers a wide range of issues including: infrastructure, local housing needs, transport and travel, economic and employment needs, flood risk management, water supply and waste water management, Gypsy and Traveller accommodation needs, leisure and sports facilities provision and needs, viability of the proposals, heritage impacts, impacts on natural habitats and sustainability appraisal of all elements of the Local Plan.

Existing evidence can be found at: Evidence Library for Local Plan Update. Where needed, these will be followed by completion and publication of final versions of the evidence documents based on assessment of the final draft pre-submission Local Plan as prepared for consultation in September.

Many of the evidence documents are iterative where the first stages look at the big picture of what is needed and later stages become more detailed as the draft local plan is refined. Evidence will be published on completion. 

As a district council, Huntingdonshire is not responsible for provision of all forms of infrastructure needed to support new development. The Council works with a wide range of other authorities, organisations and businesses to identify the requirements for infrastructure that will be generated by the development schemes proposed in the Local Plan. In particular, we are working closely with the Cambridgeshire and Peterborough Combined Authority and Cambridgeshire County Council who together have responsibility for transport and travel planning throughout the whole of the Cambridgeshire and Peterborough area, supplemented by National Rail and East West Rail. We are also working closely with providers such as Anglian Water, the Environment Agency and the NHS who will use the local plan to forward plan infrastructure requirements into their future plans as development is scheduled for delivery over the lifetime of the local plan, and beyond. 

In many instances the evidence documents identify what the cumulative requirements are expected to be at a whole district or settlement level, as well as considering individual new community scale proposals and small sites. They also identify who the responsible delivery organisations are, and where known, the expected costings and funding mechanisms.

Viability is a key element of demonstrating to the Planning Inspector that the pre-submission Local Plan is deliverable. The Whole-Plan-Viability-Assessment [PDF, 16.5MB].is an iterative document which has tested a range of possible strategies, policies and sites to establish what is feasible within Huntingdonshire. This is a very locally specific document as proposals that may be viable in adjoining districts may not be viable within Huntingdonshire.

The legislative ‘Duty to Cooperate’ approach was revoked on 25 March 2026. However, councils are still expected to engage constructively with neighbouring authorities and key partners on cross boundary and strategic issues. Evidence of effective cooperation is still expected to be presented to the Local Plan Inspector. This will be in the form of a compliance statement and statements of common ground. These will indicate the scope and nature of engagement that has taken place and areas of agreement and along with any outstanding issues. Statements of common ground may be live documents that evolve as discussions continue throughout the plan-making process. As and when these are agreed they will be published on our website. 

Once the pre-submission local plan completes its statutory consultation phase all the responses are analysed and reported in a Statement of Representations. Minor modifications can be proposed by the Council at this stage in response to matters raised in the representations if appropriate. All documentation is submitted to the Planning Inspectorate for examination in public. This is an independent public assessment to decide if the local plan is legally compliant and is, or can be made, sound. It involves both written representations and public hearings.

The tests of soundness are:

1. Positively prepared – providing a strategy which, as a minimum, seeks to meet the area’s objectively assessed needs
2. Justified - an appropriate strategy, taking into account the reasonable alternatives, and based on proportionate evidence
3. Effective – deliverable over the plan period, and based on effective joint working on cross-boundary strategic matters that have been dealt with rather than deferred, as evidenced by the statement of common ground
4. Consistent with national policy – enabling the delivery of sustainable development in accordance with the National Planning Policy Framework and other statements of national planning policy.

All necessary procedural supporting documents are being prepared to minimise the risk of the Examination finding the Local Plan unsound. These include:

• A Statement-of-Consultation-for-Local-Plan-Update [PDF, 6MB]which summarises comments received at each stage of Local Plan preparation so far and how the Council has responded to them. This is again an iterative document with responses to the Preferred Options consultation being included in the next version to support the pre-submission scheduled for September 2026. This, in combination with the Sustainability Appraisal, the Viability Assessment and the Strategic Transport Study, indicates reasons why alternative sites have been discounted at various stages of plan preparation.
• A Statement of Representations which will be prepared after the pre-submission consultation to summarise key issues and concerns raised for the Planning Inspector.
• The Local-Development-Scheme [PDF, 0.4MB].pdf which explains the plan-making process, sets out the timetable and identifies resources, risks and anticipated risk mitigation.
• A Duty to Co-operate Statement/ Statement of Compliance to demonstrate that the Council has adequately collaborated constructively with neighbouring authorities and nationally specified key stakeholders on an ongoing basis to consider the implications of strategic issues.
• Statements of Common Ground – a series of individual Statements of Common Ground will be prepared with key partner organisations and neighbouring authorities to provide details of duty to co-operate outcomes. These will identify how we have collaborated to identify and address key strategic issues, set out aspects of agreement and identify unresolved issues that the Inspector may wish to explore. Most will be published close to the timing of the pre-submission Local Plan so that they are as up to date as possible. A completed published example, is statement-of-common-ground-between-hdc-environment-agency-and-lead-local-flood-authority [PDF, 0.7MB].
• The Planning and Compulsory Purchase Act (2004) ensures completion of a Sustainability Appraisal and Strategic Environmental Assessment of the proposed Local Plan (combined into one document). This considers the environmental, social and economic sustainability impacts of the proposed growth strategies, policies and site allocations. Again, it is an iterative document necessitating updates at each stage of plan preparation following direct consultation on the Appraisal to ensure that it reflects changes to the draft plan as they evolve.  
• The Conservation of Habitats and Species Regulations (2017) necessitate completion of a Habitats Regulations Assessment to test if any development site or policy, individually or in combination, could significantly harm the designated features of any designated Special Area of Conservation, Special Protection Area or Ramsar site. Initial Scoping [PDF, 6.5MB] and Screening [PDF, 6.5MB] reports have been published for this so far, along with an additional Ecological Constraints Assessment [PDF, 5MB] considering the potential impacts on our National Nature Reserves and Sites of Special Scientific Interest.
• The Planning Inspectorate’s pre-examination checklist will be completed and submitted to the Planning Inspectorate prior to submission of the Local Plan for the examination in public.

We have held a number of public consultations which can be found on the Completed Consultations page. 

We listened to your comments and finalised the Land Availability Assessment Methodology [PDF, 0.8MB]. This was used to assess the sites that were submitted and conduct sustainability appraisals of the sites. These assessments are called Land Availability Assessments and Sustainability Appraisal and can be found in our evidence library.

We analysed comments from the Issues consultations that were held between April and July 2023. These comments helped us to formulate priorities for the Local Plan and develop options which led to the production of our Further Issues and Options consultation document. We also updated our Sustainability Appraisal with new information. Both documents were consulted on between September and November 2024.

We produced a number of evidence based documents which can be found at Evidence Library webpage. We used these, and your comments from the Further Issues and Options consultations to produce a Preferred Options Draft Local Plan to 2046. The consultation Preferred Options Draft Local Plan to 2046 was consulted on between November and December 2025. We are now processing and reviewing comments received from this consultation alongside our evidence, which will help to inform our Pre-Submission local plan which is scheduled to be consulted on starting in September 2026.

We have produced a Statement of Consultation which acts as a record of the consultation and public engagement carried out as part of the development of a Local Plan. It includes summaries of the main issues raised by the public and statutory consultees, how comments have been taken into account, and any actions the council has taken as a result.

The Call for Sites is a process whereby the council asks developers, landowners, agents and local communities to suggest possible sites wholly or partially within Huntingdonshire that might have potential for development.

It gives the council an idea of what land is available to help inform potential areas for growth in the district.

We asked about sites which might be suitable and available for the following:

• Housing, including specialist housing such as that for elderly people

• Commercial uses such as industry, retail, commercial leisure and logistics

• Infrastructure uses such as education, health, transport and renewable energy

• Open space uses such as parks, areas for biodiversity net gain and land to safeguard from flooding.

Submission of a site to the council does not guarantee that it will be allocated or that it will gain planning permission.

The first opportunity to comment on sites was through our Land Availability Assessments consultation which closed on 27 November 2024. Additional sites submitted 1 August 2024 and 31 January 2025 have been assessed and were consulted on between 23 April and 4 June 2025. 

You can also view the sites that have been submitted by looking at our interactive map and spreadsheet.

The selection of sites has been based on a number of additional factors such as a chosen growth strategy, a final settlement hierarchy and evidence-based documents such as transport studies, strategic flood risk assessments, water cycle studies, employment land studies, climate change reports etc. 

The Preferred Options Draft Local Plan to 2046 consultation showed the Council’s preferred sites for development. This was consulted on between  November and December 2025. As part of the review of comments submitted to this consultation and through the assessment of evidence we have responded by launching an additional consultation on additional small site allocations [PDF, 2MB] which we propose to include in our Pre-Submission Local Plan as allocations.  This would give greater resilience to the local plan development strategy and assist with maintaining the 5 year housing land supply required by government. This consultation is closed.

No, our Call for Sites closed on 31 January 2025.

If you want to progress a site ahead of the Local Plan you will need to do so by way of a planning application.

The planning application will be subject to consultation and will be considered on its own merits against the current development plan and material considerations. It should be noted that submitting your site through the call for sites does not guarantee that it will be allocated, or that it will gain planning permission.

To find out more about the pre-application process or submitting a planning application visit our planning webpages.

Our current consultation is one on additional proposed site allocations . These sites have been identified as being suitable for allocation following a review of representations made on the Preferred Options draft Local Plan. This consultation is available on our consultation portal and will run for 4 weeks closing at 23:59 on Wednesday 10 June 2026.

The next stage, currently scheduled for September 2026, will be a statutory consultation under Regulation 19 of the Town and Country Planning (Local Planning) (England) Regulations 2012 (as amended) called the Pre-Submission Local Plan.

This will be our proposed final version of the Local Plan. At this stage legislation dictates that you can only comment on whether you think the Local Plan meets the statutory tests of legal compliance and soundness. 

View our Local Development Scheme for more information. The Local Plan to 2046 is intended to be submitted to Planning Inspectorate by the end of December 2026.

• Register on our online consultation portal to receive updates

• View our Local Plan Update webpage

• Read our Local Development Scheme which provides a summary of the plan-making process and an indicative timetable highlighting engagement opportunities to be offered during preparation of the Local Plan Update.

If you have any further questions, please contact us at local.plan@huntingdonshire.gov.uk

Our Statement of Community Involvement (SCI) sets out how we will engage with the community on planning matters.

We will provide updates via our social media accounts.

We will inform town, parish and district councillors in the district so that they can cascade information to their local community where this may be possible. Other methods may include, posters, leaflets, exhibitions and press releases.

It must be noted that the actual methods used may differ depending on the purpose of the engagement exercise and the target audience. We will ensure that government regulation is complied with as an absolute minimum. In the first instance, electronic methods of consultation and engagement will be used.

Neighbourhood Plans add valuable local scale policy to help with decision-making on planning applications.

All Neighbourhood Plans are required to broadly align with the Development Plan.

Neighbourhood plans are required to comply with the strategic policies within Huntingdonshire's Development Plan. If there is a conflict between policies in the Local Plan or the Neighbourhood Plan the most recently adopted one will take precedence.

Approval to commence an update to the Local Plan was granted on 24 January 2023. The preferred options draft local plan was consulted on between November and December 2025 and a consultation on our Pre-Submission Local Plan is scheduled for September 2026. The Pre-Submission Local Plan will be our final proposed version of the local plan, which will then be submitted to the Planning Inspectorate for examination. It is advised that any town or parish council wishing to commence a neighbourhood plan should consider the strategic elements of the most recent local plan consultation document as well as our adopted Local Plan in the preparation of their plan. 

If a new Neighbourhood Plan is approved before the Local Plan Update is completed, the town or parish council may wish to consider updating their Neighbourhood Plan afterwards.

It should be noted that the UK Government have ceased grant funding and technical support for Neighbourhood Plans. Further guidance on producing a neighbourhood plan can be found on our webpage and on the Government’s Neighbourhood Planning Toolkit page.