I believe that villages should remain villages. This government is making this much, much harder to achieve.

The government has just changed the rules. Top down housing targets are being imposed despite a full local needs assessment being completed a few months ago.

So we are again at the early stages of looking at the local plan to meet future local housing and employment growth needs in West Suffolk over period to 2045. 

One of the first things is to understand the sites that are available for consideration as part of the local plan preparation process and whether they are suitable and deliverable.

There will be issuing a call for sites. This is not just for land for new homes, but for employment, mixed use sites and for infrastructure growth such as community facilities, education, health and transport, and green infrastructure such as parks, allotments, play areas and other open space.

The call for sites will run from 9am on Monday 23 March until 5pm on 20 May 2026 after which each site will be assessed for suitability, availability, and achievability.

Shortly prior to the current West Suffolk Local Plan being recommended for adoption, the government increased housing targets. The local plan making regulations require West Suffolk to formally begin local plan making by June 2026 because our current local plan housing requirement is less than 80 per cent of the government’s latest assessment of housing need for West Suffolk. Progressing a new local plan is also required so that the West Suffolk can maintain a 5-year land supply which is crucial for us to maintain a plan led approach and resist speculative development.

The preparation of a new local plan for West Suffolk will ensure growth will be plan led which minimises the risk of speculative development. 

If we don’t carry out this work, new homes will still be built. What we would lose would be the ability to say no to some of the speculative development that would come forward and some of the protection that we are currently able to provide to our countryside. We would also no doubt see piecemeal development which would make it much harder to secure developer funds towards critical infrastructure such as community facilities, education, health, and transport.