Local Development Scheme 2007

The Planning and Compulsory Purchase Act 2004 requires local planning authorities to publish a Local Development Scheme (LDS). This is a statement of an authority’s programme for preparing, over a three-year period, the series of documents making up the Local Development Framework for its area.

The new Town and Country Planning (Local Development) (England) Regulations 2008 have changed the Council’s current local development scheme. Under the old regulations (2004), the plan making process for development plan documents included an ‘Issues and Options’ (regulation 25) phase and a ‘Preferred Options’ phase (regulation 26).

The latest changes in June 2008 have combined these two phases giving the local authority flexibility in how it drafts a plan based on local circumstances.  What this means for local residents is that plan preparation will not be required to go through the formal  ‘Preferred Options’ phase, as  has happened  previously, but rather  it will go through an iterative  process of preparation, engagement and testing in accordance with the Council's consultation policy.

This affects the timetable for production of the Tower Hamlets Core Strategy and other development plan documents. A revised process for production of the Core Strategy is outlined in the diagram below.

The local development scheme will soon be updated to reflect the changes in the regulations.

View the adopted Tower Hamlets’ local development scheme (PDF 570kb)

View the production process of the Core Strategy

Pid No: 594