Two years ago, council officials made a start on a major 20-year housing plan which will pave the way for thousands of new homes to be built across North Yorkshire.

Called the Local Plan, the document will allocate land for new homes and employment for the next two decades.

It’s a crucial blueprint for the future of the county at a time of heightened housing demand and freshly imposed government housing targets.

So, why is it taking so long to draw up and when will it be in place?

What is the Local Plan?

The North Yorkshire Local Plan is a legal document which will set out where new houses and commercial developments can be built in the region until 2045.

It will also include policies to protect the county’s natural and built environment.

It is being drawn up by North Yorkshire Council and will supersede plans created by now defunct local authorities, such as Harrogate Borough Council, which was abolished in April 2023.

The plan comes as the Labour government increased North Yorkshire’s housing targets to 4,156 a year — it had previously been 1,361 — which has increased pressure on the council to identify land for new homes.

What stage is it at?

The plan is in the early stages and, as a result, is nowhere near being in a position to be adopted.

Currently, the council has reopened a call for sites to be submitted for the plan.

This stage of the process allows landowners and promoters to submit land which they feel should be included in the housing blueprint.

The Stray Ferret previously reported that, in the first phase of the call for sites, more than 1,800 sites had been submitted.

Meanwhile, the council itself has also submitted 47 of its own sites, which it believes will be able to help contribute to its now housing targets.

The latest call for sites will end on June 22 — however the authority said it may consider reopening the call for sites again, but stressed this cannot be guaranteed and encouraged any further sites to be submitted now. 

Why is it taking so long?

Drawing up a Local Plan is a long, arduous process which can takes years to complete.

However, the North Yorkshire blueprint has not been without its delays.

The election of the Labour government in 2024 was the first of the stumbling blocks.

Labour’s ambitious planning reforms, which included an overhaul of housing targets and a goal to build 1.5 million homes nationally by the end of this parliament, pushed the first consultation into the plan back five months to May 2025.

At the time, the council said the delay was “necessary to take stock” of what the reforms meant for the council and the Local Plan.

From there, the government also dropped a bombshell on North Yorkshire by hiking its housing requirement to to 4,156 a year — it had previously been 1,361.

The move forced Richard Flinton, chief executive of the council, to lobby government amid fears that the housebuilding drive could spark “speculative developments” from housebuilders aware of the need for mass housebuilding while the council draws up its Local Plan.

In January 2025, he said there was a chance the authority will have to go through a number of years without a Local Plan, which could make it difficult to "resist speculative applications”.

Mr Flinton said:

Ultimately, the government rejected the idea of a “transitional arrangement” and did not change its position on the housing targets.

When will the Local Plan be adopted?

The council has set a timetable for the preparation of its Local Plan.

According to the authority's local development scheme, which the council describes as “timetable for the production of documents that will make up” the new local plan, the blueprint will be examined between 2028 and 2029, before being adopted in 2029.

Prior to its adoption, the plan must go through another round of consultation, be published in a “pre-submission” format and be submitted to a government planning inspector where it will be examined.

It would then need to go to a full council meeting for councillors to vote to formally adopt the housing document.

You can read the timetable below.

At this stage, the plan appears to be on track with the council’s schedule.

However, with the current political wrangling in government and the prospect of a new Prime Minister taking the helm, it is possible that this timetable may yet change again.