On this Page: Information about the Swindon Core Strategy, providing links to the various ways in which comments can be made in response to the document.
Where We Are Now
Following the end of the consultation period on the Revised Proposed Submission Draft on 16 June, Council officers have been summarising the representations received (3,600 comments from about 1,600 individuals and organisations).
We are now drafting responses to the comments received and determining what amendments, if any, are proposed to be made to the Core Strategy.
There is also a need to assess compatibility with the emerging National Planning Policy Framework.
Copies of all the documents are available to view at Swindon Borough Council offices (please contact us) during office hours, and at all libraries during opening hours.
Evidence Base
For a list of (and links to) the evidence base documents, please see Evidence Base.
What We Have Done So Far
Revised Proposed Submission
Background information is contained in a series of downloadable PDF files:
Documents
Maps
Appendices
Proposed Submission
The Proposed Submission document was published for consultation on 27 July 2009 for eight weeks.
Deatils of the representations made at that time are available as downloadable PDF files:
The following documents are also available as downloadable PDF files:
Swindon Borough Core Strategy and Development Management Policies Proposed Submission:
Copies of all the documents are available to view at Swindon Borough Council offices during office hours and at all libraries during opening hours.
Preferred Options
A summary of representations made at the Preferred Options stage and Officers Response to them can be viewed below:
The Preferred Options Paper was published for consultation on 17 March 2008.
The Preferred Options Paper and other associated documents can be downloaded as pdf files
Please find attached an errata sheet to the Core Strategy Preferred Options Paper:
Issues and Options
Taking into account stakeholder responses received, together with consideration of the Evidence Base, including corporate priorities and the Draft South West Regional Spatial Strategy, the Borough Council published an Issues and Options Paper for consultation between April and May 2007.
A summary leaflet, the main document and its associated sustainability statement to the Issues and Options Paper can be downloaded as PDF files:
About the Core Strategy
The Core Strategy is the key document of the portfolio of local development documents (LDDs) that will make up the Local Development Framework (LDF) for Swindon. It will set out over-arching planning policies and identify broad locations for new housing and employment development, transport infrastructure and areas where development should be constrained.
In setting out its vision the Core Strategy needs to take account of corporate objectives, in particular those of the Sustainable Community Strategy. The Swindon Strategic Partnership (SSP) has the role of delivering the Sustainable Community Strategy and implementing the Swindon Local Area Agreement (the delivery plan for achieving the Sustainable Community Strategy. As a 'spatial' planning document, the Core Strategy will establish the policies required to deliver the Council's vision, and its regeneration objectives. A key function of the Core Strategy is to provide the spatial expression of the land use elements of the Sustainable Community Strategy.
Wider consultation is also needed to ascertain how stakeholders and the wider public would like to see Swindon progressing in the future. It is a feature of the new system that the involvement of community interests , stakeholders, and commercial interest will be 'front-loaded' so that these groups can be actively involved at an early stage in the plan-making process. Stakeholders, in part through the Local Policy Forum , and the wider public through a newsletter and questionnaire have therefore been engaged to establish their views on the direction the Core Strategy should take.
What Happens Next
Following this period of public consultation the Council will submit the Core Strategy to the Secretary of State for an independent examination by a Government Planning Inspector. The Inspector will consider the soundness of the Plan and will then prepare a binding report that sets out the final version of the Core Strategy. The Council will be required to adopt this final version of the Core Strategy