Watford Borough Council

Introduction

Development Planning

Development planning is a continuous process of looking forward and deciding on a course of action to improve people's quality of life and the appearance of our environment in a sustainable way.

The ‘development plan’ for an area is actually made up of a number of separate documents, produced by different bodies. For Watford, these are currently:

Decisions on planning applications are made in accordance with the adopted development plan unless other material considerations indicate otherwise. All parts of the development plan indicate clearly how local residents, landowners, and other interested parties might be affected by land use change. They are subject to regular periods of intensive public consultation, involvement and negotiation.

Supplementary Planning Guidance
In addition to the District Plan, Watford Borough Council produces a set of additional leaflets called supplementary planning guidance (SPG). They give more detail and expand upon policies in the District Plan.

Government Policy and Planning Guidance
The District Plan and Supplementary Planning Guidance must be written in accordance with government policy. If Government produce policy more up to date than a Council's District Plan, then the Council must take this into account when considering planning applications. The Department of Communities and Local Government (DCLG) is responsible for producing national planning policy.

Changes to the Development Plan

The Planning and Compulsory Purchase Act 2004 is changing the structure of development plans:

 The move to the new system is gradual and, for the next few years, we will be operating with a mixture of old-and new-style documents.

In addition, Supplementary Planning Guidance (SPG) is being replaced by Supplementary Planning Documents (SPD).

Work on the Watford Local Development Framework has now started. Further information is available from the following link:- Local Development Framework update

In the meantime, changes have already been made to the current Watford District Plan 2000: around a third of the policies have been deleted with effect from 28 September 2007.  See links under the 'related pages' section on this page.