Following the adoption of the Places for Everyone Joint Plan (PfE) on 21 March 2024, the Council is now moving forward with a new Local Plan for Bury.
What is a Local Plan?
A Local Plan is prepared to guide and manage future growth and development (such as housing, offices, industry, warehousing and retail). It contains planning policies that will be used as the basis for determining planning applications and identifies sites where this development should be built as well as areas where development should be restricted.
Bury’s Local Plan
The new Bury Local Plan will form part of a set of documents that will together form Bury’s overall development plan. The development plan for Bury will ultimately comprise of:
- the Bury Local Plan;
- the Places for Everyone Joint Development Plan (PfE);
- the Greater Manchester Joint Waste Plan; and
- the Greater Manchester Joint Minerals Plan.
The recently adopted PfE Plan was jointly prepared by nine Greater Manchester districts, including Bury. This plan establishes the strategic planning framework within which the nine districts will prepare Local Plans. Some of major strategic decisions relating to Bury’s future growth and development have already been made through the PfE Plan. For example, it identifies future needs for housing and employment floorspace, allocates strategic sites to help meet these needs and identifies a revised Green Belt boundary.
Bury’s Local Plan will provide a more detailed set of locally-specific planning policies to complement PfE. Given that both PfE and the Local Plan will be key parts of Bury’s development plan, there is clearly a need for consistency between the two. In particular, the Local Plan will need to incorporate and reflect the levels of growth and the strategic policy approach set out in PfE.
Notification of intention to prepare the Local Plan
Under Regulation 18(1) of the Town and Country Planning (Local Planning)(England) Regulations 2012, notice is hereby given that Bury Council is proposing to prepare a new Local Plan to replace the existing saved policies of the Bury Unitary Development Plan and is inviting comments on what the Local Plan ought to contain.
Call for Sites
To help inform the site-specific content of the Local Plan, the Council is also undertaking a Call for Sites to give individuals, landowners and developers an early opportunity to suggest sites that could be identified for development or, conversely, sites that should be protected from development through the Local Plan.
It should be noted that in terms of housing, the PfE Plan identifies strategic housing allocations to meet Bury’s future housing targets. As such, the need to identify additional housing sites through the Local Plan will be limited but we are keen to receive any suggestions for housing on previously developed brownfield sites within the existing urban area. We are also keen to receive suggested sites for other uses, such as employment.
In order to submit a site for consideration as part of the Call for Sites process, you need to fully complete a Call for Sites - Site Identification Form and submit it to the Council together with a map of the site (showing two named roads so that the site can be accurately identified). The completed form and map should be submitted via email to planning.policy@bury.gov.uk or by post to the address below.
- Downloaddoc file
Integrated Assessment scoping
An Integrated Assessment (IA) will also be undertaken to inform the Local Plan. The IA will incorporate the statutory requirements of Sustainability Appraisal and Strategic Environmental Assessments, with an Equalities Impact Assessment and Health Impact Assessment also included. This will ensure that sustainability, health and equality issues are taken fully into consideration throughout plan preparation. As an early stage in the IA process, we are also seeking your views on the intended scope of the IA to help us to understand which environmental, social and economic effects of the plan are considered to be relevant.
- Downloadpdf file
Comments
Your views on all three elements outlined above are invited over a six-week period from 25 March to 17:00 on 6 May 2024.
The Council is keen to promote the submission of comments and suggestions electronically and would encourage anyone with appropriate facilities to make their responses in this way to planning.policy@bury.gov.uk.
Alternatively, comments can be returned by post to the following address:
Strategic Planning and Infrastructure,
Business, Growth and Infrastructure,
3 Knowsley Place, Duke Street,
Bury BL9 0EJ.
For further information, please contact the council using the following contact details:
- Telephone: 0161 253 7800 (answerphone service).
- Email: policy@bury.gov.uk
- Post: see address above
Stay informed, keep in touch
If you want to stay informed about all aspects of the Bury Local Plan you can register your interest by completing our online form. We'll contact you at all key stages of the plan so you can always make your views known. You'll need an email address to register online and you can unsubscribe from the service at any time by emailing your details to planning.policy@bury.gov.uk or calling 0161 253 7800. If you haven't got an email address, you can opt to receive postal updates by calling us.