How local planning policy works

On this page, you can learn more about our current and future planning policy documents, and how we develop and monitor the implementation of local planning policy.

Current local planning policy

Our Development Plan is a series of documents that are the starting point for all local planning decisions. The Development Plan includes Neighbourhood Plans that we have adopted. You can find national policy documents on the Planning Portal.

We have adopted a number of Supplementary Planning Documents and guidance notes. These are documents which add further detail or guidance to the policies in the Development Plan. 

Future local planning policy

We have started work on preparing a new Local Plan for our district. This will set out our long-term strategy for local development, and includes the following:

• A strategy to guide development
• Site allocations for planned development (including major strategic development locations and smaller sites)
• District-wide Development Management policies (which will help to determine planning applications)

The Local Development Scheme (LDS) includes the published programme and timetable of forthcoming planning policy work. You can keep up to date on the progress of the local planning policy by joining our policy mailing list.

Warning Please note that we are currently reviewing the timetable for the progression of the Local Plan. We will provide clarification on the schedule for further stages as soon as possible

Evidence to support policy development

We have produced and commissioned a series of studies, documents and background evidence to support the development of our most important planning policy documents: our Local Plan, Core Strategy and Placemaking Plan.

These evidence base documents are available on the specific policy page that they relate to. We can provide Core Strategy and Placemaking Plan evidence base documents on request. Please refer to the Core Documents lists on these pages, and email us with your request. Please allow up to 10 days for each request.

Monitoring of policy implementation

We monitor how we are implementing our local planning policy, and issue regular reports. You can view the latest versions of these monitoring documents by selecting a link below.

• B&NES Authority Monitoring Reports
• Housing Land Supply and Housing & Employment Land Availability Assessment (HELAA)
• The Brownfield Register (a record of land which had a previous industrial use)

To learn what other documents are available and request copies of previous reports, please email us at planning_policy@bathnes.gov.uk.