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.
The emerging Wealden Local Plan looks ahead to 2042; it will provide a vision for the district, a long-term spatial strategy for growth, including the locations where development will take place. It will provide a range of both strategic and non-strategic policies that will guide development across the district contributing to social, environmental, and economic (sustainability) goals. 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, as well as to inform investment and the provision of infrastructure. The Planning and Compulsory Purchase Act 2004 requires that “for the purpose of making any determination under the planning Acts, the determination must be made in accordance with the plan unless material considerations indicate otherwise”.
The Council recently adopted its Local Development Scheme (LDS) (2025) that identifies and sets out the timetable for the planning documents that we will prepare to plan for development in our administrative area. The document provides information for our local communities and stakeholders to find out about the planning policy documents being prepared within the next three-year period. The LDS covers the period 2025-2028.
The LDS was approved at Local Plan Sub-Committee on Wednesday 5 March 2025 and can be found below.
Following on from the decision to adopt the LDS, the Council has and will continue to progress with an update to the emerging Wealden Local Plan through developing its evidence base and revising its development strategy following the changes to the National Planning Policy Framework (NPPF) in December 2024. A further draft Local Plan (Regulation 18) is due to be published later in 2025 as outlined in the LDS.
The emerging Local Plan has previously been through the following public consultation stages: