Gateway 1 Self-Assessment

We started preparing a new local plan for East Herts District on October 15, 2026.

Government policy says we should adopt the new plan within 30 months of this date. This is to help ensure we have an up-to-date local plan that responds to the needs of the area and our communities.

This page explains what we did to get ready to meet the 30-month timeframe. It also has links to further information and where you can get updates.

All of the information about our new Local Plan can be found on the Council’s website here, including further links to the timetable, the Vision, completed and planned consultations and the Call for Sites process.

The timetable shows when we expect to carry out the different stages and activities for preparing a plan. It helps us check if and how we can adopt the plan within the 30-month timeframe.

The timetable includes an estimated date for the start of all of the stages within the 30-month process. All of these dates can be affected by factors within and outside of the Council’s control. During this period, for instance, Local Government Reorganisation within Hertfordshire may have a significant effect on the ability of the Council to progress the plan.

The timetable was made available to stakeholders and community groups through the Committee process and as part of the Scoping Consultation exercise that followed the publication of our notice of intent. The Scoping Consultation asked what was important to our community in the preparation of the plan, and asked targeted questions about the Vision and the important topic areas that they would wish to see addressed in the plan. We collected responses to the plan through an online portal and will continue to use this to collect and organise responses and comments.

The timetable will be updated when necessary to reflect any changes.

Preparing a local plan is a complex process. It involves many people across the Council and from other organisations. Thinking early about how the work is planned, managed and signed off helps us monitor our progress and keep the work on track. It also helps us anticipate and manage any risks to us adopting the plan within 30 months.

There is highly likely to be an ongoing and continuous need to inform members of progress both on the plan’s preparation and on feedback from the community that will increasingly become a part of plan preparation. The District Plan Executive Panel (DPEP) has a remit to make recommendations to Council, via the Executive, on formal matters associated with the Local Plan.

The DPEP, Executive and Council meetings are all held in public, and the DPEP meetings encourage all members to attend in order to debate Local Plan topics. The portfolio holder for Planning and Growth chairs the DPEP meetings and leads the items considered through subsequent Executive and Council meetings as required.

The Council’s Director for Place is the senior officer responsible for the Local Plan. Corporate support at Director level is provided by the Strategic Leadership Team, which comprises the Chief Executive with all of the Council’s service Directors.

Planning policy matters intended to be put before DPEP or Executive are first considered by the Strategic Leadership Team in the context of the Council’s overall priorities and programme.

The Council’s Assistant Director for Place has oversight of the Planning Policy team and responsibility for the proper functioning of the Planning Policy Team in terms of strategic timescales and direction, recruitment and budgeting, and works with the Planning Policy Team Leader to ensure that key documents are delivered on time and have the appropriate approvals and agreements at the right time.

Public consultation is essential for the local plan to represent the needs of our communities. It must be easy for people to have their say in a way that works for them, so they can influence the way the area develops. By planning this early, we can ensure people are aware in advance and can get involved from the start.

We have undertaken a Scoping Consultation to get people’s views on what the plan could contain and how we propose to consult on the plan at key stages.

The Scoping Consultation attracted comments from 129 separate individuals, groups and organisations on strategic topics related to the Local Plan, including key topics, the most important subjects, the Vision and the strategic environmental assessment. Housing emerged as the single most important issue, with community facilities / infrastructure and sustainability coming next.

There was a high level of agreement with the six themes that had been defined in the Vision (People, Place, Economy, Environment, Infrastructure and Movement).

We also asked how people would most like to be engaged during the 30-month process. The highest responses favoured online consultations, written updates and public events / workshops. We have used the existing SCI and the feedback received during the Scoping Consultation to prepare an Engagement Strategy for the 30-month plan-making period.

Scoping includes considering how well the existing plan is working and gathering baseline information about the area. This helps to identify our future needs and ambitions. Starting this early means we can begin preparing the new plan with a clear vision, making it quicker and easier to consult on the plan and make decisions about it.

The Council agreed to the review and update of the District Plan in 2023 and, prior to the implementation of the new plan-making system, has commenced an update of its evidence base. This has started to address expected issues that will be key to developing a plan strategy and has included an update of the strategic housing market assessment, a Green Belt Assessment which looks at grey belt, new employment studies for each of the main towns and a strategic flood risk assessment. This evidence has been approved through the DPEP and Executive as it has been completed, and is available on the Council’s website here.

We have developed a draft Strategic Vision to chart a clear and ambitious course for the district’s future which will serve as the golden thread for the new Local Plan, informing policies and decision-making that will shape East Herts in years to come. The public have the opportunity to comment on the draft Vision document as part of the Scoping Consultation.

We undertook a Call for Sites – this was an opportunity for landowners, developers, agents, and site promoters to submit sites which may be considered to have potential for future development in the district.

In order to understand the development needs of the area, we have produced an Annual Monitoring Report each year which tracks trends in planning and development across a number of topics and allows the Council to understand the key issues affecting the district.

We’re legally required to identify, describe and evaluate likely significant effects on the environment of: 
•    implementing the local plan, and
•    reasonable alternatives, taking into account the plan’s objectives and scope.

This process will consider how community, national and international environmental protection objectives and any other environmental challenges are taken into account in the plan. It will help us to predict significant environmental effects and develop ways of preventing, reducing and offsetting these.

It is important we start this work early and are transparent about how we’re doing the assessment when engaging stakeholders and communities.

A Scoping Report has been produced as the first stage in the Sustainability Appraisal (SA) / Strategic Environmental Assessment (SEA) process. This report identifies current conditions and likely future trends of the district. This information leads to a number of objectives which create a framework that will be used to test the policies and site options in the Local Plan as it emerges.

We included a question about the SA/SEA within the Scoping Consultation held in June / July 2026, and the responses received will inform future iterations of the reporting. The Scoping Report was also shared with statutory consultees, the Environment Agency, Natural England and Historic England.

Plan-making involves a number of key consultations where we reach out to the public and our key stakeholders to help us shape the future direction and contents of the Plan.

The first opportunity was an early public engagement called the Scoping Consultation. This was open for comments from 11 June to 10 July 2026.

More information and details of open consultations can be viewed here.

To stay in the loop with any plan-making news, please sign up to the East Herts Planning Newsletter and Database via this webpage.