Uttlesford District Council – Call for Sites

A ‘Call for Sites’ consultation has just been launched by Uttlesford District Council and will run until 5pm on Wednesday 21st April 2021. This is a great opportunity for landowners, groups of individuals, developers and agents to submit sites to Uttlesford District Council for potential allocation in the new Local Plan.

What types of development are needed in Uttlesford?

Although all submitted sites will be considered for their development potential, for a site to be considered for potential allocation, the Council are specifically seeking housing and economic sites that as a minimum:

Must be capable of delivering 5 or more homes;
For economic development, the site must be 0.25 hectares (or the floor space must be 500 square metres) or above.

The call for sites exercise will not in itself determine whether a site should be allocated for development but the consultation does present a significant opportunity to put land forward for development.

Uttlesford’s emerging Local Plan and 5 year Housing Supply position

This Call for Sites forms the very early stages of the Council drafting a new local plan for Uttlesford following the withdrawal of the previous effort.

As part of this consultation it will be interesting to see the impact the government’s White Paper will have on required housing numbers in the area. The proposed new national housing calculation method was forecasting an increase from 706 dwellings to 1231 in Uttlesford per annum. This is a 74.3% increase.

There has recently been some backtracking on this from Robert Jenrick, the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government. Nevertheless, Uttlesford has unfortunately had a poor record historically of delivering homes and is likely to be under pressure for many more months and years to come.

This call for sites therefore represents a great opportunity for land owners to get their site allocated for development in order to help the Council meet the housing need.

The Council aims to present the new local plan to the Planning Inspectorate for approval in August 2023 and hope for plan adoption in July 2024.

What makes a good Call for Sites submission?

When submitting your site, it’s important to present your site’s suitability for development and to show that any future issues can be mitigated. For the Council to be able to make a fair assessment, they require a Call for Sites form to be submitted. This should include, but is not limited to:

Land ownership details
Site details
Location plan
Uses being sought
Site suitability issues and mitigation.

How a Planning Consultant can add value to your site

The team at Plainview Planning have a whole wealth of experience in assessing the suitability of a site for development and preparing robust and persuasive submissions that showcase the development potential of a site in its best light. We can also assist you with the necessary supporting information, from your application form and the provision of Location Plans, through to helping you to identify key constraints and strategies to overcome potential planning issues with our inhouse tools.

We also love building a network and enjoy working with high quality third party consultants to provide you with the necessary reports for Flood Risk, Contamination, Topography, Heritage etc, should your site require this.

Examples of further ways in which Plainview Planning can add value to land enquiries and Call for Sites submissions include:

Site analysis to see if your land meets the necessary requirements;
Bespoke GIS mapping systems to highlight the opportunities and constraints of a site (see our image above)
Assessing the site’s credentials against local and national policy;
Coordinating your promotion efforts to help you present your site in the most effective manner possible.

The deadline for submissions is 5pm on Wednesday 21st April 2021. Our planning consultants regularly interrogate Uttlesford’s poor record of housing and we see the continuous pressure that they are under, so make sure you don’t miss out on the chance to have your say!

If you feel you have a site suitable for economic or housing development and want to understand more about its development potential, then contact our planning team via enquiries@plainview.co.uk. Alternatively you can call us on 01242 501003 to see how we can best assist you, providing the site address and a brief overview of your project. We value your privacy and any information which you provide will not be shared outside of our company and will only be used in relation to your enquiry.

Content correct at the time of publication. For the most up-to-date advice or to discuss your project, please contact our team directly.