Southend Planning News: 14,700-Home Local Plan Due in Sept

The biggest planning decision facing Southend this year is not any single tower or estate. It is the new Local Plan, the document that will decide where homes can be built across the city until 2045, and it reaches its decisive stage next month. The council published its final draft on 27 July 2026, proposing 14,700 new homes, and the formal public comment window, the Regulation 19 stage, begins in September. Once adopted, this plan sets the rules every individual application near your home is judged against.

Here is what is proposed, the two big regeneration schemes moving underneath it, and how to have your say.

The Local Plan: 14,700 homes against a target of 28,000

The council’s draft Local Plan proposes 14,700 new homes up to 2045. That is far below the Government-set target of over 28,000 homes, which the council says the city “would otherwise continue to be held to” without an up-to-date plan of its own (Southend-on-Sea City Council, 27 July 2026). The Government’s standard-method calculation puts Southend’s housing need at 1,405 homes a year, close to 24,000 over the life of a plan, a rate the council has long argued a tightly bounded seaside city cannot physically absorb (Local Plan FAQ).

The single biggest allocation in the draft is a new infrastructure-led neighbourhood north of the city of around 4,900 homes, paired with transport improvements, schools, health facilities, employment space and a major new country park (council announcement).

Councillor Kevin Robinson, the Cabinet Member for Planning, Property and Governance, is presenting the plan as the city’s defence as much as its ambition: “Without an up-to-date Local Plan, government housing targets and speculative development would have a much greater influence over what gets built and where.” And on the draft itself: “The Local Plan gives Southend an ambitious way forward while securing improved control over its future growth and supports infrastructure-led development that works for residents whilst encouraging investment and good growth.”

How we got here, and what happens next

The plan has been in the works for seven years, through three rounds of Regulation 18 engagement: Issues and Options in 2019, Refining the Plan Options in 2021, and the Preferred Approach with Options consultation that closed on 30 September 2025 (Local Plan FAQ).

What is left (localplan.southend.gov.uk):

• September 2026: Regulation 19 publication. The final draft goes out for formal comments on whether it is sound and legally compliant.
• Submission to Government, planned for 2026, after which comments go to an independent Planning Inspector.
• Examination by the Inspectorate, then adoption if it passes.

What it means for you: the Regulation 19 window is the last formal chance to comment before the Inspector takes over, and it is narrower than earlier rounds. The test is whether the plan is justified, effective and consistent with national policy, not whether you would prefer a different site. If a field near you is allocated, this is the stage to engage; once the plan is adopted, the principle of building there is settled and a detailed application becomes much harder to resist. Day-to-day applications carry on being decided throughout, and our guide to searching and commenting on Southend planning applications covers how to track them.

Fossetts Farm: 805 homes and the Roots Hall deal, still waiting on committee

The scheme to watch on the east side is Fossetts Farm. On 12 March 2025 the council signed conditional contracts with developer Thames Plaza for 805 homes off Eastern Avenue, with the first phase of 318 homes originally expected to start in summer 2026 and complete in 2029. The deal routes £12 million in phased payments towards regenerating Roots Hall, Southend United’s stadium (Your Southend). Council Leader Daniel Cowan called it “a huge vote of confidence in the city”.

The catch: the planning application has still not come before the council’s planning committee. By February 2026 councillors were publicly urging the council to accelerate its decision (Yellow Advertiser, 11 February 2026, via Wikipedia), and no committee date had been confirmed as of early August. The summer 2026 construction start looks optimistic until it is.

Better Queensway: the roads are being rebuilt while the housing model is rethought

The other city-scale project, the Better Queensway regeneration of around 1,600 homes, is in a strange but productive limbo. The council now fully owns the delivery vehicle, Porters Place LLP, after housing association Sanctuary withdrew, and it is weighing whether to develop the homes itself, find a new partner or draw up a new plan, with findings due at a future Cabinet meeting (Better Queensway project).

The infrastructure is not waiting. Taylor Woodrow began major highways works on 8 December 2025: raising the sunken underpass to street level, shrinking the roundabout, replacing the footbridge with ground-level crossings and adding cycle routes from Victoria station towards the seafront (council, November 2025). In March 2026 the project hit its most visible milestone, installing 750,000 litres of underground flood storage, capacity the council compares to about 15 family swimming pools, to protect seafront businesses, with installation expected to finish by summer (council, March 2026). Councillor Robinson has called Queensway “a once-in-a-generation opportunity to reshape the heart of our city.”

Also still on the books: the consented Seaway Leisure scheme behind the seafront, an 11-screen cinema, bowling alley and hotel, won permission on appeal in October 2020 and a revised council lease deal in March 2023, but has yet to start on site (Turnstone Estates).

How Southend planning decisions get made

Major and contentious applications go to the council’s Development Control Committee, styled the Planning Committee on the council’s site, which meets on a Wednesday at 2pm every four weeks (Southend-on-Sea City Council). Everything else is decided by officers under delegated powers. Applications are published on the Public Access portal, with a usual comment window of three weeks. Our step-by-step guide to the register covers how to search it, set up alerts and write a comment that carries weight.

We will update this page when the Regulation 19 consultation opens and when Fossetts Farm gets a committee date.

Sources: Southend-on-Sea City Council, draft Local Plan announcement, 27 July 2026; Southend Local Plan hub and FAQ; Your Southend, Fossetts Farm deal; Fossetts Farm Stadium (Wikipedia, citing Yellow Advertiser); Better Queensway project pages; Better Queensway highways works; 750,000-litre flood defence; Turnstone Estates, Seaway Leisure; Development Control Committee.