South Warwickshire Local Plan – Preferred Options Consultation Launched

e South Warwickshire Local Plan Preferred Options Consultation is now live and will run for a period of 8 weeks, until Friday 7 March 2025. Residents, businesses and other stakeholders are now invited to have their say on the Preferred Options version of the South Warwickshire Local Plan (2050) for the combined areas of Warwick and Stratford-on-Avon District Councils for the next 25 years.

This Preferred Options Document follows on from the previous two rounds of consultations: A Scoping and Call for sites consultation in 2021, and an Issues and Options consultation in early 2023. This Preferred Options document addresses a number of topics such as housing, economy, climate change, environment etc. and then presents the preferred approach to addressing them. In this consultation document there are a range of draft policies and draft policy directions. Draft policies contain details of the subject matter and clearly set out the requirements of what the policy would like to achieve. The draft policy directions are an indication of the direction of travel the final policy will take and set out the broad aspirations of the future policy.

The Preferred Options document identifies 24 potential Strategic Growth Locations and 12 potential New Settlement locations, which are an indication of where we consider large-scale strategic growth may best be located. In addition, smaller scale growth is likely to be appropriate in other locations; these locations are not indicated in the Preferred Options document. Overall, the growth locations identified would accommodate significantly more than South Warwickshire’s identified housing and employment needs, and therefore not all these locations will be allocated as a part of the plan making process. The SWLP team will be undertaking further analysis of the Growth Locations and potential New Settlements to conclude which locations, and specific sites will be most suitable locations for the South Warwickshire's growth strategy. 

How to Comment
The simplest way to respond is via the online consultation portal. You can respond to each part of the consultation document using the following four questions:

• Do you agree with the approach laid out in the draft policy/policy direction?
• Do you have any further comments on this section?
• Do you have any comments on this Strategic Growth Location/New Settlement?
• Do you have any comments on a specific site proposal or the Housing Land Availability Assessment (HELAA) results?

Each question can be answered with either ‘Yes/No/Other’ and there is the opportunity to add further comments.

Residents without access the portal have the option to submit their response to ONE of the Councils below, using the comment form.

[email protected]                     [email protected]
Stratford on Avon District Council          Warwick District Council
Elizabeth House                                  Town Hall
Church Street                                     Parade
Stratford-upon-Avon                            Royal Leamington Spa
CV37 6HX                                          CV32 4AT

Hard copies of the documents are available to view at Brunswick Healthy Living Centre, Libraries across the two districts, and the Royal Pump Rooms, Leamington Spa.

Call for Sites
A further targeted Call for Sites is also being run alongside the Preferred Options consultation. This Call for Sites exercise is only for sites that meet at least one of the purposes below:  

• A site that falls within or adjacent to one of the 12 proposed New Settlement Locations  
• A Gypsy and Traveller / Travelling Showpeople Site 
• A site for commercial or community-led renewable energy generation 

We will not be accepting any other sites at this time. Submissions can be made using the interactive form which is available on the SWLP website. 

Comments on the ‘Preferred Options’ consultation, and submissions to the call for sites must be received by 11:59pm on Friday 7 March 2025.

Events

In addition to the consultation material, which includes videos, posters, and an interactive navigation pane, officers will also be hosting a number of consultation events. These events are available both online and in person and are an opportunity to ask questions on the consultation, and to go through how to respond to the consultation. Details on the events are available on the SWLP website.   

You can find out more information about the South Warwickshire Local Plan at: https://www.southwarwickshire.org.uk/swlp/
 
Further contact information for the South Warwickshire Local Plan.
Stratford-on-Avon District Council          Warwick District Council
Email: [email protected]             Email: [email protected]
Phone: 01789 267575                           Phone: 01926 456525