The Buckinghamshire Local Plan (2025–2045)
This new Buckinghamshire Local Plan
(the ‘New Plan’), once approved, will establish the planning strategy for Buckinghamshire
(the ‘County’) from its adoption until the end of 2045. The government has
imposed a new legal obligation on Buckinghamshire Council (the ‘County
Council’) to accommodate between 91,000 and 95,500 homes in the County over the
next two decades, with the New Plan the primary mechanism to control the
locations of the homes. If there is no adopted Local Plan the County Council
loses control, leaving the County highly
vulnerable to ‘speculative development’ - developers seeking and gaining permission
to build on unallocated or less desirable sites because the County Council
cannot demonstrate how it plans to meet its mandatory housing targets.
The draft New Plan has reached
the Regulation 19 (‘Reg 19’) stage, which is the final consultation
phase before submission for independent examination. Once the consultation
period closes, the County Council will review all submitted representations and
amend the draft New Plan as it sees fit, with the amended New Plan scheduled to
go before the full County Council for approval in November. Once approved by
the County Council the approved New Plan, its supporting evidence and all
consultation responses will be submitted to the Planning Inspectorate. An inspector will then examine the Plan to
determine if it is ‘legally compliant’ and meets the tests of ‘soundness’ and
if the inspector is satisfied the New Plan becomes effective.
There are two potentially very serious
issues for our Parish. First the Plan includes a proposal for approximately 130
new houses in Great Kimble. This would include any of the 50 houses yet to be
built under our Neighbourhood Plan between now and 2033 which are built in
Great Kimble but not any built elsewhere in our Parish, while the use of
‘approximately’ in the drafting means developers can, and often do, argue
successfully that more new houses can be
accommodated if the new mandatory target has not been met. This contrasts with the policies in our
Neighbourhood Plan (approved by a nearly 90% vote in favour) and the Parish
Council has made a representation under the Reg 19 procedure requesting that this
anti-democratic proposal be refused, not least because the significant increase in traffic expected from the new
housing and the 2,500 new homes approved for Princes Risborough would worsen,
very considerably, the ongoing congestion
and related problems caused by the Little Kimble railway bridge and the
increasingly insufficient local infrastructure.
The second issue is the proposed
allocation of an additional 17 Traveller and Gypsy sites in and close to Marsh. The sites include land on which legal action
by the County Council continues to prevent further damage, including blocking the
bridleway between the centre of Marsh and the Marsh level crossing use of which
(by pets and their owners, amongst others) avoids the increasing volume of traffic
on Marsh Lane. Your Parish Council has made a second representation under the
Reg 19 procedure that the proposed new sites
be deleted, not least because, If approved, this would mean that the
County Council would be rewarding those responsible for the major and ongoing
breaches of planning law, many of which remain unremedied despite this being
legally required.
The two representations made by
Great & Little Kimble cum Marsh, your Parish Council as part of the Reg 19
process are technical documents that establish why, in light of these and other
inaccuracies in the draft New Plan, the current draft is neither ‘legally
compliant’ nor ‘sound’ (in each case as specified in the regulations) and so
cannot be approved without amendments catering for the issues we (and others)
have raised. The Parish Council have also provided our local County Councillors, Steven Broadbent and David Carroll, with
copies of the representations and we encourage you to request their support as
if the New Plan is not amended the County Council will be imposing major
adverse changes to the character of your Parish between now and 2045.
Great & Little Kimble cum
Marsh Parish Council
21st September, 2026
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