New Local Plan

Next steps – Wealden Local Plan Submission Draft (Regulation 19)

The Wealden Local Plan – Submission Draft (Regulation 19) is due to be considered by Cabinet and Full Council on Friday 18 September 2026, with a view to commencing the necessary representations period in the week commencing 21 September 2026, to run for a period of six weeks.

The local plan will then be submitted to Government before the end of 2026 to meet the Government deadline, with the examination due to take place in 2027.

What is the difference between Regulation 18 and Regulation 19?

It is important to note that there is a key difference in the language and approach between a Regulation 18 and 19 process.

Regulation 18 stage is about asking/consulting the community what is most important for the local plan and using those answers together with the national planning policy framework and collected evidence to develop the plan.

Regulation 19 stage is about asking interested parties to make representations to the Council about our submission draft plan. Those representations have to focus strictly on legal compliance and tests of soundness rather than open-ended suggestions.

In very simple terms, it is less about what people would like to see in the plan and more about commenting on the acceptability (in a legal and planning sense) of what is presented in the draft submission version. So it is not about alternatives, or highlighting areas that could be better, but on whether the presented version complies with the national planning system.

Representations at Regulation 19 stage will be considered by the Council and the Planning Inspector once the Local Plan is submitted for examination.

We recognise that this is a complex area and so will provide further guidance on the Representation stage as it goes live.

New Local Plan

Wealden District Council is preparing a new Local Plan. The Local Plan will be the key planning document for Wealden District, excluding the area covered by the South Downs National Park Authority (SDNPA). The SDNPA has planning powers for its own area. Once adopted, the Local Plan will form part of the Development Plan for the District, replacing all existing local plan policies and will be used to assess and make decisions on planning applications.

In March 2024, Wealden District Council published a draft local plan (known as Regulation 18) that set out the Council’s draft policies and growth strategy for the plan period. A summary of the main issues to the draft Wealden Local Plan (March 2024) were presented to our Local Plan Sub Committee on 5 March 2025. In January 2026, the Council consulted on our ‘Focused Local Plan’, in response to changes to the National Planning Policy framework in December 2024.

The consultation on the ‘Focused’ Draft Local Plan closed on Monday 30 March 2026. We are grateful to all those who took the time to respond to the consultation. The comments are being considered alongside national policy, our evidence base and comments from earlier rounds of consultation to formulate the Regulation 19 Wealden Local Plan. A summary of comments will be provided alongside the Wealden Local Plan – Submission Draft (Regulation 19).