Call for Sites

We’ve been gathering your feedback on what makes a great place to live and what the future ‘Local Plan’ for Central Bedfordshire should look like.

The Local Plan seeks to set out a vision and framework for the future development of the area. In it, we hope to ensure homes and jobs in the right places, with the necessary facilities and services, while protecting the environment as much as possible.

To make sure we have all of this in place, we are now asking for your help once again to support this Local Plan. We will be doing what is officially called a ‘Call for Sites’, which simply means asking people to suggest the right places for future development, for us to then investigate.

Initially, we were specifically looking for ‘Brownfield’ sites - land that has been built on previously and is now maybe empty or derelict. However, whilst the Brownfield Call for Sites has identified some potential opportunities for future housing and employment growth that we will want to assess further, from an initial review, it is apparent Brownfield sites alone will not be sufficient to meet our needs for the next Plan period. We are therefore opening up the Call for Sites for all land across Central Bedfordshire.

Anyone can submit a site, including landowners, developers, community groups, and individuals. Whilst you do not need to own a site to submit it to the Call for Sites, it is unlikely we’d be proceeding with sites where there is not clear support from the landowner.

The Call for Sites will cover the whole of the Central Bedfordshire area and we’ll be looking for sites that could provide the following land uses:

• Residential developments that can provide at least 10 homes (including extra care housing)
• Employment development (including freight rest areas)
• Gypsy, Travellers and Travelling Showpeople pitches
• Green Infrastructure
• Green Energy
• Other uses such as education and leisure

Submitting a potential development site for the Call for Sites is not the same as a planning application. Putting forward a site is the first step in seeking the support of the Council to consider it when they are identifying land for development and other uses. These sites are then assessed, and some may be allocated within the Local Plan.

The Local Plan will include policies that show the boundary of the sites allocated and explain the key principles for the developments, for example setting out approximately how many homes or jobs it will need to provide, and what services and facilities it will need to provide as part of the development. A planning application would still be required for any site allocated for development within the Local Plan.

A planning application is a separate, formal process that would normally follow a site’s allocation in the Local Plan, and it is at that stage where the specific details are decided, such as the exact number of homes, the number of parking spaces, the size and location of new facilities and road layouts.

An online site form will need to be completed for each site. As a minimum, we will need the site boundary to be plotted onto the online system, the address of the site, the current use of the site and ownership details, if known. Additional information, such as detailed site plans and photographs, are also helpful.

For us, it’s really important that big new developments have the right facilities so we’d expect anyone submitting a major development site to be considering from the outset what benefits they believe it could bring existing and new residents.

If you are aware of any issues or constraints that affect the site and already have proposed mitigation in mind, it would also be useful to submit any details around this to inform the assessment process.

For sites that pass the initial assessment stages, there will also be an opportunity to submit additional information at a later stage in the assessment process.

Submitting a site does not mean the site will be allocated for development.

National guidance requires us to consider whether sites are:

• Suitable (i.e., the location is appropriate for development when considered against any constraints and their potential to be mitigated)
• Available (i.e., the landowner wants to develop the site and there are no legal or ownership issues)
• Achievable (i.e., whether the development being proposed will be delivered in an appropriate timeframe)

Every site that is put forward will be assessed against a set of specific criteria. The views we have gathered from residents as part of our recent public engagement are currently helping to shape some of these criteria. This will include taking into account issues such as infrastructure capacity (whether there are sufficient places at nearby schools and GP surgeries, for example), flood risk, environment and historic designations, accessibility (how easily sites can be accessed by different modes of transport), road capacity, sustainability and many more factors. We will also engage with key external organisations such as National Highways, Natural England and Historic England to highlight any issues and opportunities.

Allocations will be selected from the shortlist of sites which have passed the assessment process. This will be informed by the Local Plan’s chosen strategy. There will be an opportunity for the public to comment on the sites selected before a decision is made.

Yes. If you wish any site previously submitted to the Council to be reconsidered, it should be resubmitted using the new online submission form. This will ensure that we have up-to-date and consistent baseline information for all sites. A new assessment of the sites will be made using the site assessment criteria for the new Local Plan.

Please note, if your site is already allocated in our current Local Plan, there is no need to resubmit them. All allocations from previous Local Plans will be carried forward.

No, sites that have previously been submitted and are currently on the Brownfield Register have already been through an initial high-level assessment. The Council will contact those on the Register to confirm whether they would like their sites to be considered through the Local Plan process.

Developing a Local Plan is a big task, which takes a number of years. As well as requiring a huge range of evidence studies to be prepared to ensure we are considering all options effectively, we want to ensure we allow enough time to hear from you (our communities, stakeholders and businesses) about what you want for your area.

You can view the full timeframe at the bottom of this web page.

Sign up for our email alerts for regular updates.

National guidance states that the assessment of sites needs to identify all sites and broad locations (regardless of the amount of development needed) in order to provide a complete audit of available land. The process of the assessment will, however, provide the information to enable an identification of sites and locations that are most suitable for the level of development required.

The Government has recently consulted on a new method for calculating housing needs which suggests that Central Bedfordshire needs to provide 2,099 new homes for every year that our Local Plan covers. We are also preparing a study that will break our housing number down to look at the different types of homes we need to provide, including the amount and types of affordable housing. This study will also work out how many and what type of jobs we need to provide.

Once we know how many homes and jobs we need to find, we will assess all the sites that are submitted to us and identify enough to meet our requirements.

We have also commissioned a separate study to work out how many pitches we need to provide for our Gypsy and Traveller and Travelling Showpeople community.

At this stage we are asking for all types and sizes of sites, although we do propose to only allocate housing sites able to accommodate at least 10 dwellings. This is because we are focusing on sites which are large enough for us to be able to secure funding towards infrastructure improvements and provide affordable housing. If sites are not capable of providing ten or more dwellings though, we are still happy to accept submissions which will then be passed on to neighbourhood planning groups to consider when they review or produce new Plans.

We are not seeking comments on sites at this time. Once we have finished the Call for Sites, we need to take some time to consider each of the sites that have been submitted to us before we seek views on them. There will be opportunities to comment on sites in due course and we will publicise when this will happen.

Stay up to date by signing up for our email alerts.

No, this isn’t an option. We are given a housing figure by the Government that we have to meet and we are required to have an up-to-date Local Plan in place (we must review it every 5 years) to address this. Some of the first things the independent planning inspector will look for when assessing the plan we submit is whether we are meeting our need for new homes and jobs, including our needs for gypsy, traveller and travelling showpeople sites. If we don’t meet our need without compelling reasons, the plan will not be passed by the Inspector.

Without a Local Plan in place, we will lose significant control over where development might happen, and the infrastructure and services it could provide. We will then be under pressure to approve these to meet our housing needs, or the Government is able to start overturning refusals at appeal if they don’t feel there are against national planning policy. This form of development is much more difficult for the Council to influence and it makes it harder for us to get the best for our communities. Therefore, there will be growth, but the Local Plan allows us to plan for what growth is best for Central Bedfordshire, rather than just having to approve planning applications which come in.

If you would like to discuss the Call for Sites process further, please email localplan@centralbedfordshire.gov.uk or call 0300 300 8301.