Open Council Network - Canterbury

The Overview Committee is scheduled to meet to discuss the targeted Regulation 18 local plan consultation, and to confirm the minutes of their previous meeting. The meeting will be held at the Guildhall, St Peter's Place, Canterbury. Members of the public are welcome to attend and speak, so long as they have provided notice ahead of the meeting.

Here are the topics that the Overview Committee is expected to discuss:

Targeted Regulation 18 Local Plan Consultation

The committee is scheduled to discuss the draft Local Plan as part of a focused consultation under Regulation 18 of the Town and Country Planning (Local Planning) (England) Regulations 2012. The report pack includes the stated intention to gather feedback from councillors, so they can feed in the views of the communities they represent. The report pack states that the Overview Committee is intended to act as a platform for councillors to hear public concerns and contribute their own ideas during the shaping phase of the plan.

The public consultation for the Local Plan began on 9 September 2025 and is scheduled to close on 21 October 2025. The public have been invited to give their views via an online questionnaire, email, or post.

The report pack includes a summary of the reasons for the consultation, stating that providing more housing is a national priority, and that the government has set ambitious housebuilding targets for England to boost the supply of new homes and support economic growth. The report pack also states that the government expects each council area to have an up-to-date plan in place to meet housing needs and contribute to the national targets.

The report pack states that the council undertook consultation on the Draft Canterbury District Local Plan (Regulation 18) in March – June 2024, receiving almost 4,000 responses. These responses, along with input from previous consultations in 2020, 2021 and 2022, are expected to inform the development of the Local Plan.

The report pack notes that the National Planning Policy Framework (NPPF) was updated in December 2024, including an updated method for calculating Local Housing Needs (LHN). Following these changes, the LHN now stands at 1,215 new homes per year for the district, compared with 1,149 new homes per year at the time of the last consultation. The report pack notes that the adopted Local Plan from 2017 made provision for 800 new homes per year.

The report pack states that meeting this scale of housing needs will mean that additional sites will need to be allocated in the Local Plan. The report pack also notes that there is a need for significant changes to some of the strategic site allocations and the overall distribution of new development, known as the spatial strategy, previously consulted upon.

The report pack states that the consultation is seeking views on:

a number of new draft site allocations policies
changes to some of the draft strategic site allocations
Gypsy and Traveller draft policies and allocations

The report pack also notes that feedback is being sought on what some of the other relevant changes to the NPPF might mean for the district.

The report pack states that the consultation is not on the entire draft Local Plan again, and that all the comments received through previous consultations will feed into final draft version for Regulation 19 stage early next year.

The report pack includes a section on aligning the Local Plan with new NPPF requirements, including:

Local Plan period and housing needs
Affordable housing and social rent
Economic development and modern economy
Water infrastructure and delivery

The report pack includes a section on why the proposals are needed, including:

Meeting housing needs
Meeting Gypsy and Traveller accommodation needs
Meeting commercial and transport needs

The report pack includes a section on draft Local Plan policies for consultation, split into five areas:

Canterbury area
Whitstable area
Herne Bay area
Rural area
District-wide

The report pack notes that further information about the background assessments for these sites can be found in the Focused Regulation 18 Topic Paper (2025).

The report pack includes an equality impact assessment¹.

The report pack includes a number of appendices, including:

South West Canterbury Strategic Development Area

The report pack states that land at Merton Park was included in the 2022 and 2024 draft Local Plan consultations, and that significant changes to the site transport and access strategy are now proposed, including the removal of the requirement to deliver new slip roads to the coastbound carriageway of the A2. The report pack notes that, together with the deletion of the draft allocation at Land north of Hollow Lane, this means that the South West Canterbury link road is no longer proposed for allocation and no longer forms part of the transport strategy for Merton Park.

The report pack states that the Merton Park boundary has previously included land at Ridlands, which is allocated in the adopted Local Plan for 310 dwellings. The report pack notes that in previous consultations the land at Ridlands was proposed to be safeguarded for future hospital expansion instead, but following the government announcement that a new hospital would not receive funding, it is now proposed to remove this land from the Merton Park area and carry forward the adopted allocation for 310 dwellings.

The report pack states that land is identified within Merton Park for the provision of a new comprehensive sports hub, and that now that the A2 slip roads are no longer proposed, a new Park and Ride facility is no longer possible within Merton Park. The report pack notes that an alternative location for the new Park and Ride facility is identified at Thanington Recreation Ground, which will also offset the loss of Park and Ride capacity at Wincheap following the delivery of the new fourth slip.