What’s On

Basingstoke’s New Local Plan - Have Your Say

As of Friday November 28th, residents will be able to have their say on council plans to allocate hundreds more homes to rural land across North Hampshire, including the addition of a 500-home site at Oakley Farm in the North of Highclere Parish. This site is directly on the opposite side of the A343 to the 260-home site at Watermill Bridge. The Borough Council is responding to increased Government housebuilding targets. Late last year it was informed that the ongoing Local Plan Update would not pass inspection unless it accommodated those targets. This increased the Council target to 1127 new homes per annum, up from 828, an increase of 36% ! As a result the local authority has had to redraft its Local Plan and in particular the Spatial Strategy which earmarks where future development takes place, adding in more land which it suggests could accept new housing from now until 2042. It is also required to re-run an additional consultation on the revised Plan. They do this through their “consultation portal” which can be found at https://consult.basingstoke.gov.uk/ Registration is straightforward. The Council announced the consultation on November 21st with the following statement: “The consultation, which starts on Friday 28 November and runs for eight weeks, is your chance to give your views on the draft plan that will guide development and planning decisions in the area until 2042. The consultation focuses on an updated spatial strategy, which meets additional needs required through new national planning guidance published late last year. This is your opportunity to be involved in deciding where new homes, employment and infrastructure will be built. When the consultation starts next Friday the council will send an email with further information on how and where to get more information. The consultation will run through our online consultation portal, enabling everyone to get to the parts of the Plan that are the most important to them, and make comments quickly and easily. A number of events are also being arranged for January and venues, dates and times will be provided when the consultation launches. Please do not submit comments before the consultation begins on Friday 28 November as they can’t be taken into account. Also, if you made comments on the last Regulation 18 consultation in early 2024 you don’t need to repeat those comments as they remain valid.” The Society will be examining the consultation in detail and will hope to give useful feedback to members as the consultation progresses and well before it closes on January 23rd 2026. We will also be watching for the “events” mentioned to decide whether we should attend on your behalf.