Plainview Planning regularly provide planning consultancy services throughout Colchester and the wider North Essex area.
Being the oldest recorded town in the country, Colchester is steeped in history. It is also surrounded by attractive landscape, with the Dedham Vale AONB being located to the north of the town. This has contributed to Colchester being a popular town to live and do business in. It is currently one of the fastest growing towns in the country, only surpassed by Oxford, Cambridge and Canterbury and is one of the highest performing economic areas outside of London (LSH, UK Vitality Index 2013).
Despite all this growth and apparent land supply, the Council will have a future challenge accommodating the housing required to meet its identified future housing needs. The Greater Essex Demographic Forecasts state that Colchester will need to supply 1,244 dwellings per annum until 2033 to meet this need. This would represent a significant uplift on the existing planned supply.
To assess this need, the Council has committed to a full Local Plan and Site Allocations review, with this commencing in early 2015. It is important that those developers and landowners with land that could be released as a potential strategic allocation maintain ongoing discussions with the Council throughout 2014 and 2015.
Plainview Planning has worked on a wide range of projects in the wider Colchester area. If you are looking for assistance with your planning application, planning appeal or land promotion do feel free to contact us directly at info@plainview.co.uk.