skip to main content
Planning

Planning

Preferred Options Draft Local Plan to 2046 

The Preferred Options Draft Local Plan to 2046 consultation closed on 17 December 2025.

Comments received from stakeholders and statutory consultees will be processed, and reviewed, and further technical evidence will be gathered to inform the Proposed Submission Local Plan.

We anticipate consulting on this in summer 2026. 

You can view the responses to our Preferred Options draft Local Plan to 2046 and Sustainability Appraisal on our online consultation portal.

Consultation overview

We consulted on two documents: 

  • Preferred Options Draft Local Plan to 2046 [PDF, 10.5MB]: This was the first full draft of the Local Plan. It is based on national policy, evidence and previous feedback from stakeholders. It is our vision for sustainable growth to 2046 and sets out how we will deliver land for new homes, jobs and infrastructure. It looks at how we can protect our natural environment, how we will respond to climate change and provides policies which will be used to assess planning applications outlining what we require from new development in the district.  

  • Sustainability Appraisal [PDF, 3.5MB]: This document assesses how the draft local plan performs against environmental, social and economic objectives. 

The preferred options draft local plan was informed by your comments and responses to previous consultations and evidence-based documents. These documents can be found on the Evidence Library page. 

Interactive policy map

The draft plan was accompanied by an interactive policies map.

Explore the policy map to view the proposed site allocations and the draft policies in the preferred options draft local plan to 2046.

To see the key, click on the key icon Key icon To view and turn layers on and off, click on the layers icon Layers icon

For more guidance, please refer to the map user guide [PDF, 0.8MB].

 

FAQs 

We have to individually accept all comments made and this may take us a while depending on the amount and type of comments we receive (for example paper and email responses may take longer). 

If we have received a large amount of comments we will continue to process these comments after the consultation has closed, so you may want to check back later.  

Preparing a Local Plan involves many stages of evidence gathering, public engagement, policy and site development. This Preferred Options Draft Local Plan to 2046 is intended to be the final non-statutory stage of its preparation. This forms part of our engagement under Regulation 18 of the Town and Country Planning (Local Planning) (England) Regulations 2012 (as amended). 

The next stage, anticipated to be in summer 2026, will be a statutory consultation under Regulation 19 of the Town and Country Planning (Local Planning) (England) Regulations 2012 (as amended). This will provide opportunities to comment on specific aspects of the Draft Local plan to 2046 that we intend to submit for formal public examination. 

Evidence documents will be published as we continue through the local plan process on our website. 

The image below shows the scheduled future stages of the local plan process. 

The future structure of local government is currently being explored in many parts of the country to change from the current system of county councils and district councils to a single tier ‘unitary authority’ model.

The new unitary authorities will be responsible for all services currently provided by both county and district councils. The government’s schedule is for new unitary authorities in Cambridgeshire and Peterborough to start to operate in 2028.

The benefit of moving forward with this Local Plan is that Huntingdonshire will go into the new local government structure with an up-to-date local plan that has been shaped by our communities. The new unitary authority will then be required to prepare a replacement local plan within 5 years of being established.

The preferred options draft local plan to 2046 was informed by a series of technical studies which can be found on the evidence library page.  

We will continue to build this evidence base to inform the next draft of the local plan, including: 

  • Strategic Transport Study

  • Final Water Cycle Study Stage 2

  • Stage 2 Infrastructure Delivery Study

  • Stage 2 Whole Plan Viability Assessment

  • Habitats Regulation Assessment (HRA) Stage 2 Appropriate Assessment  

Once completed, they will be published on the evidence library page. 

Future Local Plan related consultations

If you wish to be informed of future Local Plan-related consultations please register on our online consultation system. Once registered, you will be notified by email at each stage of consultation and be able to use the system to make comments on the documents published.