Formal Preparation on a new Local Plan for Chesterfield Borough Council started on 21 September 2026.
This follows a four-month notification period that commenced with publication of our formal Notice to Commence Plan preparation on 20 May 2026.
During this period we undertook a Scoping Consultation on the Local Plan.
Government policy says we should adopt the new plan within 30 months of this date. This helps ensure we have an up-to-date Local Plan that responds to the needs of the area and our communities.
This page explains what we have done to get ready to meet the 30-month timeframe.
Local Plan timetable
The Local Plan timetable shows when we expect to carry out the different stages and activities for preparing a plan. It helps us check if and how we can adopt the plan within the 30-month timeframe. We’ll keep this updated as we make more progress.
This timetable will be kept under review on a monthly basis and updated as required, or upon completion of each of the stages of plan preparation set out in the timetable.
To ensure we deliver our plan within 30 months, we:
- will retain and make use of the responses previously made through the Regulation 18 consultation undertaken in 2025 (available below)
- have prepared and are preparing extensive evidence to understand the issues facing the borough
- have proactively engaged with stakeholders and community groups, both informally before publishing our notice of intention to commence and as part of our scoping consultation (undertaken between 15 June and 12 July 2026)
- will promote the use of a digital response form to help us analyse the responses more efficiently
Engaging in this way has helped generate initial ideas and key criteria within the plan. It also ensured that stakeholders and residents had sight of the plan-making process and the requirements for the new plan-making system early on. We will continue to work with stakeholders through our consultation periods.
We’re confident we will be able to adopt our plan within 30 months.
| Regulation 18 Statement of Consultation |  (PDF 1.97 MB) |
Project management and governance arrangements
Preparing a Local Plan involves many people across the council and from other organisations. Thinking early about how the work is planned, managed and signed off helps us:
- check our progress and keep the work on track
- anticipate and manage any risks to us adopting the plan within 30 months
We have developed a project plan to help us prepare the plan in line with our Local Plan timetable and will meet regularly with our key decision makers to monitor how this is going. A Project Initiation Document was prepared in April 2026 (using the Planning Advisory Template), and we have prepared a Risk Register to identify potential risks to the project plan. This is reviewed and updated regularly.
Plan preparation will be undertaken in accordance with the council’s constitution and the responsibilities set out within it.
The Cabinet meeting that approved publication of the council’s Notice to Commence Plan Preparation also considered the proposed governance arrangements for plan preparation, including when formal approval of the council or Cabinet would be required, and the decisions that would be delegated to the Director of Economic Growth, and Portfolio Holder for Planning and Climate Change.
Approach to consultation and engagement
Public consultation is essential for the Local Plan to represent the needs of our communities. It must be easy for people to have their say in a way that works for them, so they can influence the way the area develops. By planning this early, we can ensure people are aware in advance and can get involved from the start.
The Scoping Consultation we recently undertook sought people’s views on what the plan could contain and how we might engage with people and organisations on the plan at key stages.
We will use the comments from this consultation to help us prepare an engagement strategy. This describes how we’ll consult and communicate with our communities as we continue to prepare the plan. The Engagement Plan will be developed from the council’s previous Statement of Community Involvement (SCI), and will be in line with the council's Community Engagement Standards.
You can find information about upcoming consultation activities on our website and social media channels.
Content of the plan
Scoping includes considering how well the existing plan is working and gathering baseline information about the area. This helps to identify our future needs and ambitions. Starting this early means we can begin preparing the new plan with a clear vision, which makes it quicker and easier to consult on the plan and make decisions about it.
To gain an understanding of the development needs for our area, we have looked at the existing evidence about our area and the people our plan needs to provide for. We have also considered our current Local Plan and how well it has delivered for our communities and what may need changing.
We undertook a Scoping Consultation between 15 June and 12 July 2026, inviting comments on the scope of the plan and how we could engage with the community.
Alongside this consultation we asked for suggestions of sites (a ‘Call for Sites’) to consider for a range of land uses within the plan – this updated previous Calls for Sites.
Using the information we have gathered along with the input from our decision makers, we have:
- begun to draft a vision for the area
- started to understand the development requirements for our area
Finally, we have started:
- to identify where new developments could be located
- sites and locations that require specific protections
- looking at what new planning policies and information or data we’d need for decision making about new developments
As required by Regulation 22 of the Town and Country Planning (Local Planning) (England) Regulations 2026, we will publish a summary of the responses to the Scoping Consultation after the publication of this self-assessment.
Strategic Environmental Assessment
We’re legally required to identify, describe and evaluate any likely significant effects on the environment of:
- implementing the Local Plan
- reasonable alternatives taking into account the objectives and the geographical scope of the plan
This is done through a combination of processes referred to ‘Strategic Environment Assessment’ (SEA) and ‘Appropriate Assessment’ under the Habitat Regulations (HRA).
This process will consider how community, national and international environmental protection objectives and any other environmental challenges are taken into account in the plan. It will help us to predict significant environmental effects and develop ways of preventing, reducing and offsetting these.
It is important we start this work early and are transparent about how we’re doing the assessment when engaging stakeholders and communities.
We published an SEA Scoping Report in June 2026 (see below).
We have identified other relevant plans and programmes and collected baseline information, looking at the area’s environment and relevant designations to identify potential issues or problems.
We are establishing the scope of our SEA and the level of detail we will need to include in our draft environmental report and procuring external advice to support the process. Further assessment of emerging spatial options, policies and potential sites will be undertaken as part of the next stage of Plan preparation – Content and Evidence.
| Local Plan Sustainability Appraisal Scoping Report June 2026 | (PDF 1.59 MB) |
How to stay up to date
Details of how to keep up to date, and our privacy policy, can be found on our New Local Plan 2025 to 2044 web page.
Gateway 1 documents
| Chesterfield Borough Council Readiness Checker For Gateway 1 |  (Excel 28 KB) |