A new Local Plan, determining where new homes will be built across Somerset, will not be in place until 2028 at the earliest.

A Local Plan allocates sites across a given local authority area for new housing, employment growth, protected green spaces and necessary amenities, such as new schools, doctors' surgeries, railway stations and village halls.

Somerset Council inherited all the Local Plans of its predecessor councils when it officially replaced them on April 1, and planning decisions can still be taken on the basis of these policies.

But a brand new Local Plan – which could see new housing sites allocated or existing ones removed – will not see the light of day for at least another four years, due to the amount of work involved and outstanding legal issues.

The new Local Plan will cover the whole of the Somerset Council area, and is designed to bring together and harmonise the following existing plans:

• Mendip Local Plan Part I (which covers Frome, Glastonbury, Shepton Mallet, Street, Wells and the neighbouring villages)
• Mendip Local Plan Part II (which provides additional sites in these settlements)
• Sedgemoor Local Plan (which covers Bridgwater, Burnham-on-Sea, Cheddar, Highbridge, North Petherton and the neighbouring villages)
• Taunton Deane Core Strategy (which covers Taunton, Wellington, Wiveliscombe and the neighbouring villages)
• West Somerset Local Plan (which covers Minehead, Watchet, Williton and the neighbouring villages)
• South Somerset Local Plan (which covers Chard, Crewkerne, Ilminster, Wincanton, Yeovil and the neighbouring villages)
• Somerset Mineral Plan (which determines how and where minerals may be quarried or otherwise extracted)
• Somerset Waste Core Strategy (which covers household waste recycling centres and similar facilities)

Until the new Local Plan is approved by the Planning Inspectorate (following numerous rounds of consultation and a public inquiry), the existing plans remain in force and are legally binding.

However, certain parts of these plans may be accorded less weight if the relevant former district cannot demonstrate a five-year land supply – meaning sizeable developments could be approved even if they conflict with other planning policies to meet housing need.

The only part of the Somerset Council area which will not be subject to the new Local Plan is the Exmoor National Park, which has its own Local Plan.

A timetable for the new Local Plan was published ahead of a meeting of the council's climate and place scrutiny committee held in Yeovil on September 20.

Under law, the council must have its new Local Plan in place by April 1, 2028 – five years on from its official vesting day (i.e. its first day of operation).

To this end, the council's planning team began initial evidence gathering in April and has created a 'statement of community involvement' – which lays out how residents and relevant organisations will be consulted in putting the plan together.

"Internal and external stakeholders" will be consulted further until February 2025, with the draft Local Plan going out to public consultation between April and June 2025.

The feedback from this consultation will then be incorporated, and the final draft will be published in October 2026, before being submitted to the Planning Inspectorate after further feedback by March 2027.

The appointed inspector will then have until February 2028 to review the Local Plan, with the possibility of public hearings being staged to allow residents to make their case for any final modifications.

The inspector will publish their final report, with any such modifications in February 2028, meaning the new Local Plan can finally be approved by the council and become legally binding before the end of March 2028.

Part of the delay in producing the new Local Plan emanates from a successful judicial review which forced five sites to be removed from the Mendip Local Plan Part II.

The council has until March 2024 to provide alternatives to these five sites (which lie north of Frome, and include three on the outskirts of Midsomer Norton), which must deliver around 505 new homes between them by 2029.

Additional delays may also be caused by the upcoming general election (which has to be held by January 2025 at the very latest) and proposed changes to planning laws being contemplated as part of the government's long-awaited levelling up and regeneration bill.

In a bid to speed up the process, the council will internally review both its mineral plan and its waste core strategy by April 2024, and will only go out to external consultation on these elements if they are no longer deemed to be "effective" in meeting the county's needs.

Councillor Alan Bradford (North Petherton) – who previously set on Sedgemoor's development committee – said that drastic reform was needed to streamline the planning process, allowing small-scale applications to be approved quickly.

He said: "From the time someone applies for planning consent to the time they get it might take two-and-a-half to three years.

"In that period of time, the amount it will cost is totally thrown out of the window – it takes too long. There's too many surveys.

"With local parish and town councils, people get on their planning committees to try and stop a bit of planning. They can be a damn nuisance – by God, they are sometimes – but they are well-informed and they hold the procedure up.

"Bat surveys are a hell of a cost for a development and it takes quite a long time. It needs to be looked at if you want houses to be built quicker."

Councillor Mike Stanton (Curry Rivel and Langport) – who currently chairs the Somerset Rivers Authority board – said that potential flood risk had to be taken into account when allocating sites, in light of recent extreme weather events.

He said: "Sedgemoor [District Council] has approved lots of new development, but a lot of it is on the floodplain, and that depends a bit on whether the Bridgwater tidal barrier gets built, works and lasts long enough.

"I've spent a lot of time, especially since January's near-flood event, listening to people who were at risk simply because their houses were built where they really shouldn't have been built.

"We need to look at that aspect of planning and stop building houses on the floodplain."