Southend has paused its Local Plan and will ask government for more time past 31 December. It does not change Wednesday's decision on 2,000 Green Belt homes.
Southend-on-Sea City Council has paused its new Local Plan. The next stage, the Regulation 19 publication consultation, was due to begin in September. It will not now go ahead, and the council says it will ask the government for more time beyond the current deadline of 31 December 2026.
The decision was published on Friday afternoon in a statement from the council leader, Cllr Daniel Cowan (statement, Southend-on-Sea City Council). The reason he gives is arithmetic in the council chamber.
“We know that there isn’t currently a majority for the draft Plan, so we intend to use the time to listen, look again at what can reasonably be changed and try to find a way forward that can command majority support.”
It landed three days before an extraordinary meeting of the full council called to defend the Green Belt, and five days before a decision on 2,000 homes built on it. The sequence matters, because the pause does less to protect that land than it might appear.
What has been paused
The plan the council consulted on last year would set how much building Southend has to accept, and where, up to 2045. That first round, the Regulation 18 “Preferred Approach with Options” consultation, closed on 30 September 2025. In its own summary of the draft in July, the council set out what was at stake (draft Local Plan, Southend-on-Sea City Council):
- Regulation 19, the next stage, was to begin in September
- the government’s standard method gives Southend a target of more than 28,000 homes
- the draft plan proposed 14,700 to 2045 instead, using its own evidence
- it included an “infrastructure-led neighbourhood” of around 4,900 homes on land north of Southend, with a new country park
- it also carried tighter controls on houses in multiple occupation and stronger affordable housing requirements
None of that is now going forward on the September timetable. The adopted development plan stays in force in the meantime: the Core Strategy of 2007, the Development Management Document of 2015 and the Essex Waste Plan of 2017.
Cllr Cowan’s statement says planning applications “will continue to be considered against the city’s existing adopted planning policies and national planning policy”.
The deadline the council wants moved
31 December 2026 is not a date Southend set. It is the government’s cut-off for submitting a local plan for examination under the existing plan-making system.
The published guidance is short about it: “If you are progressing a local plan under the existing system, you have until 31 December 2026 to submit it for examination unless specific transitional arrangements set out in the 2024 NPPF apply” (rollout of the new local plan-making system, MHCLG). The replacement system came into force on 25 March 2026, and the two run in parallel for the rest of this year.
That guidance does not describe a route for an authority to ask for longer. The council’s statement does not say what form the request will take, who decides it, or what happens to the plan if the answer is no. We will report those details when the council publishes them.
What the pause does not change
The obvious reading is that stopping the Local Plan protects the Green Belt from it. On the council’s own planning file, the opposite is closer to the truth.
Officers assessing the Bournes Green Chase application had to decide how much weight to give the emerging plan. They gave it none (committee report, Southend-on-Sea City Council):
“Given the early nature of this document is noted and its pre-examination status, in accordance with the guidance in paragraph 49 of the NPPF, no weight is given to this emerging Plan, the next stage of which is called Regulation 19, in the consideration of this application.”
Paragraph 49 of the NPPF ties the weight an emerging plan carries to how far it has got, how many objections are unresolved, and how closely it follows national policy. The further a plan advances, the more weight it can be given. Southend’s is still at the stage where officers give it none, and the pause keeps it there for longer.
Meanwhile the thing that is actually driving decisions carries on. The same report records that Southend can demonstrate “only approximately 1.6 years of deliverable housing land” against the five years national policy requires. That engages paragraph 11(d) of the National Planning Policy Framework and the tilted balance: permission should be granted unless the harm significantly and demonstrably outweighs the benefits. Officers estimate the annual requirement at about 1,405 homes a year, and note the standard method applied to the plan period to 2045 gives roughly 28,100.
An adopted plan is what ends that. Until one is adopted, the shortfall, not the draft, decides applications. Southend’s current Core Strategy was adopted in 2007, before every version of the National Planning Policy Framework.
Cllr Cowan makes the same point from the other direction: “every delay means the stronger protections we want around HMOs, infrastructure and inappropriate development take longer to put in place”.
The two meetings this week
Monday 24 August, 6.30pm, Council Chamber, Civic Suite. An extraordinary meeting of the full council, with one substantive item. A cross-party motion asks members to reaffirm Core Strategy Policy KP1, that “a Green Belt will be maintained around the urban area”. It also asks the Mayor to publish an open letter to residents recording what is decided. It is proposed by Cllr Alex Moyies for Reform UK and seconded by Cllr James Moyies for the Conservatives. The motion text was only added to the agenda in a supplementary pack issued on 21 August, the same day as the leader’s statement (agenda, Southend-on-Sea City Council).
Wednesday 26 August, 5pm, Committee Room 1, Civic Suite. The Planning Committee decides application 25/01792/OUTM, up to 2,000 homes on 94.8 hectares of Green Belt farmland north of Bournes Green Chase. Officers recommend granting it. We set out that report, the £25.4m of Section 106 cash and the 315 objections in our report on the officer recommendation. Both meetings are webcast, and the room at the Planning Committee has limited capacity.
What it means for you
- If you were waiting to comment on the Local Plan in September, there is now nothing to comment on. No new date has been given. The council says it will use the time to talk to residents and councillors.
- Applications are still being decided, and on the old rules. The 2007 Core Strategy plus national policy is the test, and the housing land supply shortfall still tilts it towards approval.
- Comments on Bournes Green Chase still count until Wednesday. The officer report says representations received up to the day of the meeting will be reported in the supplementary agenda, published on the morning of the committee. The application is on the council’s planning register, reference 25/01792/OUTM, with an agreed expiry of 31 August.
- Monday’s motion is a statement of policy, not a planning decision. Full council can reaffirm the adopted plan. It cannot determine an application, which is the Planning Committee’s job, taken on planning merits.
- Track what gets built near you on our Southend planning applications page, updated from the council’s weekly lists.
We will report the outcome of Monday’s vote and Wednesday’s decision.
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