The Basingstoke South West Action Group (SWAG) was a group of individuals living in the south western area of Basingstoke and the villages beyond who came together to inform and influence planned development in the west and south west of Basingstoke.  The Group is currently non-operational. This website page is maintained from time to time to provide links to relevant elements of planning policy in the area.  

To contact SWAG please click here

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LOCAL PLAN UPDATE JANUARY 2025 LATEST

The Government published a new version of the National Planning Policy Framework (NPPF) on 12 December 2024.  This has had the effect of making most of the Local Plan Update work carried out by BDBC redundant.

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BDBC now has to find development sites for 1,127 dwellings per annum (dpa), compared with the previous target of 828 dpa on which all the previous Plan work was based.  This represents a 36% increase in the number of dwellings p.a. that have to be found.

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WHAT DOES THIS MEAN?

1. BDBC has had to reissue its Strategic Housing and Employment Land Availability Assessment (SHELAA) 

2. ​BDBC is carrying out a further "Call for sites" which may elicit even more landowners proposing ever less suitable greenfield development sites.  This consultation runs for 6 weeks from 6 January 2025

3. We can expect even more sites to be identified in and around Basingstoke and, most likely, in and around villages such as Overton, North Waltham, Dummer and Oakley.

4. It should be noted that at April 2024, Basingstoke already had planning permissions for 7,200 new dwellings (mainly on Manydown).  As the National House Building Federation has said, people cannot live in planning permissions!

5. The re-imposition of the requirement for a five year housing land supply, which is controlled by the speed at which developers can or are prepared to build out sites, is likely to result in even more speculative development on sites in the countryside over and above those identified in the Plan.

6. It is highly likely that the changes in the Government's demand for ever greater Local Plan numbers in places like Basingstoke will result in more and more greenfield sites being blighted by planning permissions that simply cannot be delivered.

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DEVELOPMENTS IN THE SOUTH WEST PROPOSED IN THE NOW ABANDONED LOCAL PLAN UPDATE​

- There will be more!

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