Next week’s Planning Policy Committee will consider approving a consultation on the five potential locations being considered for a garden village development, as part of the Local Plan making process. If approved, the Local Plan: Garden Village Consultation will take place for six weeks in August/September 2017.

The five locations are:

 Blindley Heath

 Chaldon Land at Alderstead and Tollsworth Farm

 Edenbridge, Land west of Edenbridge

 Redhill Aerodrome

 South Godstone

In March 2017, the Planning Policy Committee agreed the preferred strategy to be pursued in preparing the Local Plan. The Council believes this strategy will provide much needed homes and infrastructure by delivering development through a combination of a new garden village and some limited development within and on the edges of a number of our built up areas. The Council is committed to only amending the Green Belt boundary in locations where its purposes are not served and where community benefit is evident and where exceptional circumstances are demonstrated.

This approach has a number of advantages. Not only will it enable the delivery of proper infrastructure to support homes in the district, including schools, a doctor’s surgery, supermarket and investment in roads, it also means we would prevent a scattergun approach to development.

Three of the five locations being considered for a garden village have not yet been formally consulted upon. The Council is therefore recommending residents are given the opportunity to consult specifically on all five of these sites before work begins on the proposed submission stage of the Local Plan.

Two of the locations were included in the Local Plan: Sites Consultation. Detailed analysis of the 4,700 comments submitted during this stage of consultation, which took place between 4 November and 30 December 2016, is ongoing.

Councillor Peter Bond, Chairman of the Planning Policy Committee, said: “We have insisted on building the Garden Village Consultation into the timeline as it’s really important our residents have the opportunity to properly consider and give their views on the five sites which have been put forward by developers. The Local Plan will shape the district for years to come and it is right that we invest time and work together to get this decision right for our district.”