Wycombe development plan
The development plan for Wycombe is made up of a number of documents.
In considering planning applications, we are required to make the decision in accordance with the Development Plan, unless material considerations indicate otherwise. The law requires that these development plans are reviewed every 5 years.
Local plans
The Local Plan is a plan for the future development of the district, drawn up by the District Council in consultation with the community. It guides decisions on whether or not planning applications should be given planning permission as well as how much and where future development can take place.
In Wycombe, we have two local plans. Both of these plans must be looked at when considering planning applications in Wycombe.
The Wycombe District Local Plan defines how future development should take place for the whole district and was adopted on 19 August 2019.
The Wycombe District Local Plan:
- sets out strategic policies
- allocates new areas for housing growth
- allocates new areas for employment growth
- sets out development management policies for housing, economic growth, placemaking, historic conservation, the AONB, flood risk and water quality, the green belt and rural areas, and safeguarded land for essential infrastructure
You can view the adopted plan documents below.
Adopted plan documents:
You can view the allocations online on MyMaps by selecting the 'Planning Policy' map category.
The Delivery and Site Allocations Plan for Town Centres and Managing Development (DSA Plan) was adopted 16 July 2013. It refers mostly to town centres, but it also contains district-wide development management policies.
The DSA remains a part of the Development Plan for the Wycombe District following the adoption of the Wycombe District Local Plan on 19 August 2019. The adoption of the Local Plan included the deletion of DSA polices PR3 and PR4 relating to Princes Risborough, and development management policies DM17 and DM18.
The Delivery and Sites Allocations plan:
- allocates the framework for High Wycombe, Marlow, and Princes Risborough town centre
- allocates areas for redevelopment in High Wycombe and Marlow
- sets out development management policies for transport, employment sites, mixed-use sites, district and town centres, green networks and infrastructure, green spaces, conservation and biodiversity, and infrastructure and delivery
You can view the adopted plan documents below
Adopted plan documents:
You can view the allocations online on MyMaps by selecting the 'Planning Policy' map category.
Minerals and waste plans
Buckinghamshire County Council are responsible for minerals and waste planning and produce a Minerals and Waste Plan. These documents show the policies and proposals for carrying out mineral extraction and waste management development.
The Minerals and Waste Local Plan 2016-2036 was adopted on 25 July 2019.
The Buckinghamshire Minerals and Waste plan:
- sets out a spatial strategy for minerals development
- allocates land for sand and gravel provision
- sets out development principles for mineral extraction
- sets out a spatial strategy for waste management
- sets out the capacity needs for waste between 2016-2036
- sets out the control and management of minerals and waste development
You can view the document on the website linked above.
These documents can be viewed at Wycombe District Council, Council Offices, Queen Victoria Road, High Wycombe HP11 1BB.
Supporting documents
The Development Plan is supported by the following documents:
The Wycombe Local Development Scheme [PDF | 1.06MB] sets out our work programme for the main planning policy documents we intend to prepare over the next three years. In particular it includes:
- what local plans we intend to produce
- the subject matter and geographical area the plans relate to
- the timetable for the preparation of the documents
- the status of each document
Our Local Development Scheme was last updated in August 2017.
The policies maps (also known as the proposals maps) shows the location of adopted planning policies within the Local Plan on a district-wide map. You can also view our adopted planning policies on MyMaps.
We are in the process of updating our policies maps to reflect the adoption of Wycombe District Local Plan. The previous policies maps can be viewed below:
The statement of community involvement (SCI) sets out how and when we involve the community in the development of planning policy and guidance documents.
We have reviewed the content of the SCI in light of legislative changes. We have updated the neighbourhood planning section of the SCI to reflect the new legislative requirement for us, as a local planning authority, to set out our policies in relation to advising on neighbourhood plans and neighbourhood development orders. We adopted our revised statement of community involvement (SCI) in July 2018.
The Wycombe monitoring report contains information showing how our planning policies are performing against key indicators. It is our authority monitoring report (AMR).
This includes information on housing delivery, employment, environment and infrastructure including developer contributions. This report now contains an update on our five year and long term housing supply. We have also published a partial update to the five year housing supply position.
See also previous copies of our Wycombe Monitoring Report:
Wycombe District Council is able to demonstrate more than five years’ supply of specific deliverable housing sites (from a 31st March 2018 base date).
This accords with paragraph 73 of the 2019 NPPF, which requires local planning authorities to identify and update annually a supply of specific deliverable sites sufficient to provide a minimum of 5 years’ worth of housing. This statement is intended for planning practitioners and stakeholders with an existing knowledge of the issues. To learn more about these issues please see the online National Planning Practice Guidance.
For frequently asked questions on the local plan and planning policy, please see our FAQs page.