County structure plan
Bedfordshire Structure Plan 2011
The Planning and Compulsory Purchase Act 2004 outlined the means of transition to a new Planning System. As part of the change, County Structure Plans are no longer being produced. Please note that with effect from 27 September 2007 only six Structure Plan Policies have been "Saved". All others have expired. Further detail appears in the letter and schedule below.
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Please note that the East of England Plan, published on 12/05/2008, included Policy T15 that has replaced Structure Plan Policy 46. Thus only 5 of the old Structure Plan Policies remain.
Bedfordshire and Luton structure plan
The long term land use and transport policies are set out in Bedfordshire County Council Structure Plan 2011. This plan provides the framework for the more detailed and site specific policies in Local Plans.
Under normal circumstances, the County Council and Luton Borough Council would have reviewed the current Structure Plan so that it reflected updated Government advice and rolled it forward to cover the period to 2016. As part of this process, a Deposit Draft Structure Plan 2016 was published for public consultation in November 2002 and the responses have been analysed. The next step would have been a Public Inquiry during Summer 2003.
However, the Government has since overhauled the planning system. The County Structure Plan will no longer be prepared and the present form of Local Plans will also be dispensed with. Instead, there will be a Regional Spatial Strategy for the East of England supplemented at District Council level by Local Development Documents (or Plans). At the request of central Government, work on a replacement Structure Plan 2016 has been abandoned.
Legislation to confirm these changes was enacted by The Planning & Compulsory Purchase Act 2004.
Regional planning
As a parallel exercise, work is in hand to revise and update Regional Planning guidance. This is a fairly lengthy process and the transitional situation is complex:
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Bedfordshire and Luton are presently covered by Regional Planning Guidance for the South East (RPG 9). However, Bedfordshire and Luton have since been moved into the East of England Region and will be included in Regional planning guidance for the East of England. This guidance, to be known as The East of England Plan (RSS 14), is scheduled for publication in 2007.
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Many areas of Bedfordshire and Luton lie within the Government's Milton Keynes and South Midlands Growth Area. Many (but not all) higher level policies for these areas have already been determined and are included in the Milton Keynes & South Midlands Sub-Regional Strategy which was formally Adopted in March 2005.
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Any remaining policy changes for the Growth Area, together with policies covering those parts of Bedfordshire and Luton which lie outside the Growth Area, will be included in the East of England Plan in 2007.
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For the present, therefore, higher level planning policy for Bedfordshire and Luton may appear in either the Structure Plan 2011 or in the Milton Keynes & South Midlands Sub-Regional Strategy.
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When the East of England Plan is published in 2007 it will replace the Structure Plan but the Milton Keynes & South Midlands Sub-Regional Strategy will also remain in force for the Growth Area. At a future date, the East of England Plan and the Sub-Regional Strategy may be combined into a single document.
Local planning
Local planning policies will continue to be available via the existing adopted Local Plans until they are replaced by the new style Local Development Documents.