Inspectors issue Local Plan Report enabling council decision on final adoption
Independent planning inspectors have completed their examination of the St Helens Borough Local Plan and have published their final report.
Article date: 24 May 2022
The report outlines the Main Modifications which need to be made to the draft St Helens Borough Local Plan after public consultation that concluded in January this year, and following a series of public examination hearing sessions into the Local Plan Submission Draft which took place last summer. Once these modifications are made to the Local Plan it will be ready for Cabinet and Full Council to consider formal adoption at scheduled meetings in June and July.
St Helens Borough must have a Local Plan to show the vision for future development and every area in England should have an up-to-date Local Plan in place and review it at least every five years.
The Local Plan gives local residents some certainty about development plans and future uses of land in the borough. It shows where development is planned, and therefore where resources and possible additional infrastructure such as roads, or new schools, are needed to support it. The Local Plan also helps prevent decisions being made on developments which may not be in the interests of our community.
Councillor Richard McCauley, Cabinet member for Regeneration and Planning, said: "When we first launched our Draft Local Plan in 2019 we could never have envisaged the journey that the borough has experienced since due to the impact of Covid-19. But it's testament to our vision and commitment that now as we come out of the worst of the pandemic, we already have so many schemes coming to fruition such as the development at Glass Futures, Parkside, Omega West and the transformation plans for Earlestown and St Helens town centres.
"The creation of this Local Plan has been an incredibly thorough process and I'd like to thank everyone who has taken the time to work with us and provide opinions to help shape what we now have as an independently validated final plan that can be considered for formal adoption in the coming months.
"This strategy is vital to our ambitions to create jobs, build homes, shape infrastructure investments, create and protect our open green spaces and develop our town and district centres, while also giving us greater safeguards against unsuitable schemes."
The Local Plan and its supporting documentation is available to view online at www.sthelens.gov.uk/localplanexamination.
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