We’re reviewing the Kirklees Local Plan
The Kirklees Local Plan lays out our goals for development across Kirklees, and we’ve started the process of a formal review.
What is the Local Plan?
The Local Plan lays out how much development we want to achieve, and where within Kirklees that development should take place. It also includes a lot of policies which are used, alongside national guidance, whenever we’re reviewing planning applications.
Why are we reviewing the plan?
When we first launched the Local Plan back in 2019, we committed to fully reviewing the plan within five years, in line with government guidelines. This is hugely important because a lot can change in five years. The current Local Plan was adopted before the Covid-19 pandemic and before we declared a climate emergency.
We’ll be looking at whether the Local Plan is meeting its original targets in terms of housing and job creation. Futhermore, whether updates are needed to account for everything that’s changed both for Kirklees and nationally over the last five years. This will include looking at changes the government has made to UK-wide planning policy, and how these changes might affect our own policies here in Kirklees.
What happens next?
The review will take place over the next few months, and the results will then be shared through Cabinet.
As this review (and any updates as a result) are in line with guidelines on Local Plans from the government, there are lots of nationally agreed advice and processes in place to help us undertake the review and figure out whether a partial or full update to the Local Plan is needed. This means we can also take the opportunity to benchmark what we’re doing against other authorities across the UK, and take a closer look at good work being done nationally.
If this review confirms that we do need to make amends to our Local Plan, a longer process will follow to decide what that update plan will look like. This will include a lot of engagement with local residents and businesses.
Councillor Graham Turner, Cabinet Member for Growth & Regeneration, says:
“The Kirklees Local Plan is all about the bigger picture, and how we deliver our ambitious plans to develop Kirklees over not just years but decades to come.
“When we first launched the local plan in 2019, we knew this review would be coming. Things change over time, and our long-term plans need to remain relevant in order to deliver.
“But back in 2019, no-one could have foreseen the level of change that Kirklees – and our country as a whole – has seen since. Taking an in-depth look at how our original plans have held up against all that change is now more important than ever.”