Planning policy for agents and developers

Use this page to quickly locate all of the local planning policy documents and tools you need.

Local planning policy documents

Our Development Plan is a series of documents describing our current local policy. The Development Plan includes Neighbourhood Plans that we have adopted. 

The Development Plan is supported by Supplementary Planning Documents which we can use as a material consideration in planning decisions. 

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)

You can find mapping for all of our local planning policy on our online mapping tool, or use this checklist to take you directly to the specific item or group of related policies that you require. 

Evidence base for policy

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, Placemaking Plan and Core Strategy.

These evidence base documents are available on the specific policy page that they relate to.

Policy monitoring reports

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.

Keep updated on local policy development

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 LDS by joining our policy mailing list.

 

Propose sites for development

We keep track of what land is available and suitable for development. To participate in this work, you can propose sites that you think may be suitable.  We then consider these sites and update our land availability assessment periodically, to inform our evidence base for future planning policy documents.

Please note that this is a different process to applying for planning permission, and no planning status is given to land included in the availability assessment.

Propose a site for development