Hertfordshire Development Plan

The Plan-led System

Planning involves making decisions about the future of our surroundings and the services provided. It affects everyone in the county, from those who live in towns to those in the countryside. It is a difficult balancing act between the need to develop and progress the county in which we live and ensuring that this happens in a sustainable way to minimise negative impacts and protect important environmental assets.

The planning system in England requires each local planning authority to prepare a folder of documents outlining how planning will be managed for that area. In the case of the county council the planning documents relate to minerals and waste.

The Development Plan for Hertfordshire is, at present, made up of the Regional Plan, Hertfordshire Minerals and Waste Plans and the saved District Local Plans. The Government has announced (July 2010) that Regional Spatial Strategies are to be abolished.

The County Council had a legal duty to prepare, and regularly review, its minerals and waste planning documents and changes to the way that these documents are produced were introduced in 2004. At present the county council is preparing a new suit of documents for waste planning and has a minerals planning document that was adopted by the Council in 2007.

In order to ensure that existing policies are not lost in the process of preparing the new documents each Authority requested that the policies be 'saved' until replaced by new policies. Consequently all of the adopted Minerals Local Plan and most of the Waste Local Plan Policies have been saved.

The County Council is also responsible for determining planning applications involving mineral workings, waste management activities and the Council's own services (eg schools). In determining planning applications, the county council must have regard to the development plan documents.

Please follow the links for more information about the County Council's different planning functions.

Planning legislation requires a suite of planning documents that go to make up the development plan. These are:

• Regional Spatial Strategies (RSS), these planning documents previously prepared at a regional still have a legal status as part of the development plan however councils must also take into account the fact that the Government intends to revoke them.

• Local Development Frameworks (LDFs), prepared by each of the district/borough councils in the county and which set out the core strategy and planning proposals for the local level

• Minerals and Waste Development Framework, prepared by the County Council

National policy guidance relating to these documents is set out in Planning Policy Statements (PPS), published by the government.

Hertfordshire's Minerals and Waste Development Framework can be viewed via the links below and consists of a number of documents:

• Development Plan Documents (DPDs) - these include the core strategy and other key documents, such as site allocations for minerals and waste development

• Supplementary Planning Documents (SPDs) - these expand on policies set out in the development plan documents or provide additional detail

• A Statement of Community Involvement (SCI) - this sets out our policy and strategy for involving the community in the preparation and revision of the Minerals and Waste Development Framework and planning applications

• The Minerals and Waste Development Scheme (MWDS) - this is a public statement setting out our programme for producing the Minerals and Waste Development Framework documents

• The Annual Monitoring Report