Watford Borough Council and its partners are committed to making Watford "a town to be proud of, where people will always choose to live, work and visit". A major part of achieving this is the preparation of a new type of development plan for the Borough, called the Watford Local Development Framework (LDF). This will consist of a set of documents that will gradually replace the existing Watford District Plan 2000. Using a range of shorter documents, rather than a single plan, will enable greater opportunity for community involvement in the process and greater flexibility to update the individual documents as required.
The various documents in Watford's LDF are summarised below:
- Local Development Scheme (LDS): this is the detailed timetable and project plan showing all of the documents that are to be produced to make up the LDF. Watford's LDS is under review but will be published on this website when it has been approved by the Government Office for the East of England (GO-East). To see the full LDS click here.
- Statement of Community Involvement (SCI): this sets out how the Council intends to engage the residents of the Borough in the plan-making process. Watford's SCI was adopted in July 2006, the full SCI can be seen here .
- Development Plan Documents (DPDs): these are part of the statutory development plan and will contain spatial policies for development. The Core Strategy is Watford's first DPD and will be followed by further DPDs on Site Allocations and detailed development control policies.
- Supplementary Planning Documents (SPDs): these will be produced where it is necessary to expand the policies set out in a DPD or if additional detailed information needs to be produced. The Charter Place Planning Brief SPD was adopted in March 2006, and a Residential Design Guide SPD is currently being prepared, both will be added to the Resource Centre section of this website in the near future.
- Proposals Map: this map will identify the spatial extent of policies and, as such, will be updated as new DPDs are adopted.
- Annual Monitoring Report (AMR): produced every December, this document sets out how the production of the LDF is progressing against the milestones identified in the LDS. The AMR also monitors the performance of policies in the current local plan and in new DPDs as they are produced and implemented.
Further information on all of the LDF documents is set out in the Council's LDS, which is available here and for collection from the Town Hall.
Please note that the 'saved' policies in the existing Watford District Plan 2000 remain part of the development plan for Watford until explicitly superseded by the LDF policies; the policies in force will be made clear in all DPDs.
Use the panel below to choose from the consultations within the Local Development Framework.