Cabinet is asked on 16 November to start a plan setting how many homes go where across Greater Essex. Southend may have to find up to £250,000 towards it.
Southend’s Cabinet is being asked to formally start work on a single growth plan for the whole of Greater Essex. The plan will set how much housing is needed across the county and roughly where it should go. Future local plans, including Southend’s, will have to fit inside it.
The plan is called a Spatial Development Strategy. Southend must prepare it jointly with Essex County Council and Thurrock Council, according to the report to Cabinet on Monday 16 November (Greater Essex Spatial Development Strategy report). The duty comes from the Planning and Infrastructure Act 2025. The report says “the preparation of an SDS is not a choice for any area”.
What the plan will decide
The report sets out what the law says the strategy must and must not do:
- it will set the amount and distribution of housing across Greater Essex, including affordable housing
- it must identify “broad opportunity areas” where future growth will be directed
- it must not allocate individual sites, which stays a job for each council’s local plan
- it will name the strategic infrastructure the county needs, which the government can then use when it decides on infrastructure funding
- it will identify areas where development should not go
Once adopted, it becomes part of the statutory development plan. Local plans reviewed after that must be “in general conformity” with it.
The report adds one detail that matters for housing numbers. For the first version of the strategy, councils with an up-to-date local plan and an agreed housing figure will have that figure locked in for the life of their plan. Southend’s own Local Plan is still a draft: the government directed the council to publish it, and comments are open until 21 December.
What Cabinet is asked to agree
The report recommends that Cabinet:
- agrees that Southend, Essex County Council and Thurrock Council formally start the work
- agrees interim working arrangements, under which all three councils’ cabinets must approve each key decision before it goes ahead
- agrees a draft work programme, with a final version going to the Secretary of State
- hands the Director of Planning and Economy, with the Cabinet Member for Planning, Cllr Kevin Robinson, authority to agree that final programme and the guiding principles
The government is expected to lay the regulations this autumn. The councils then have 90 days to send it a timetable, which the report expects to happen in early 2027. The report says the work broadly follows a 24-month roadmap, but warns that the move to a mayoral authority for Greater Essex could slow it.
What it costs
The report says the cost of the work “is unknown at this stage”. The figures it does give:
| Item | Amount |
|---|---|
| Government grant already received, held by Essex County Council | £765,000 |
| Likely total government fund, 2025/26 to 2028/29 | £2m to £3m |
| Possible extra local funding from each of the three councils, over two years | £100,000 to £250,000 |
The report says the government money “is unlikely to be sufficient” for the whole process. Any extra Southend funding would have to go through the normal budget process.
If the councils do not do the work, the Secretary of State can step in. The report lists the powers, which include setting the timetable or policy content, taking over the strategy, and approving it if the councils vote against adopting it. The government can recover the costs of stepping in from the councils.
What it means for you
This plan will sit above Southend’s Local Plan. Decisions about how many homes the wider area needs, and which broad areas take them, will increasingly be made at county level rather than in the Civic Centre alone.
There is no consultation yet. The law provides for one formal public consultation on a draft, which is some way off, and the report says other engagement may happen at key stages.
Cabinet meets at 6pm on Monday 16 November. The papers and the webcast link are on the meeting page. Our planning applications guide explains how to comment on schemes near you.
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