Local Plan for Buckinghamshire

 

A new Local Plan for Buckinghamshire is being prepared by Buckinghamshire Council.

It will cover the 20-year period 2025 to 2045 and replace the previous Vale of Aylesbury Local Plan (VALP) published by the then Aylesbury Vale District Council in 2018.

A Local Plan sets policies for many aspects of development within the County, but the most significant and far reaching is housing.  The Local Plan has to be consistent with the National Planning Policy Framework (NPPF) published by the Government.  The latest version of the NPPF published in December 2025 required Buckinghamshire to provide 95,000 new homes over the plan period, an increase of 43% on the numbers in the VALP.  

Chearsley Parish Council is following the Local Plan work closely and in 2025 submitted a detailed response to the first draft version. The latest version - 'Local Plan for Buckinghamshire - Regulation 19 version' was published on 23 July 2026.  Regulation 19 is a mandatory consultation stage in the production  of a Local Plan.  Comments on this version are limited in permitted scope to those that challenge if the plan is 'legally compliant, evidence-based, deliverable, and consistent with national planning policy'  

A list of all the documents published as part of the Regulation 19 consultation is available here, including links to the relevant pages on the Bucks website

Along with the main plan document, Buckinghamshire Council also published a list of sites that have been identified as being potentially suitable for development.  This list includes a site in Chearsley, with a claimed potential capacity to accommodate 30 houses (reduced from 36 in the first draft version).  See the interactive map here.  

Further updates on the production of the Local Plan will be provided here.