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Winchester Local Plan

Update January 2026

The Local Plan has passed through all procedural stages and has been subject to a public hearing before a Government Planning Officer whose final report is anticipated in early 2026. Indcations are that development at Brightlands will go ahead, and earlier than anticipated. This is because the Inspector has ruled that the 'Brownfield before Greenfield' policy should be deleted thus building on greenfield sites can go ahead before the planned date of 2030.

Winchester City Council are currently finalising their Local Plan. The final stage of consultation ends on 13th October 2024.

At this late stage WCC have, without any public consultation, included a site in Sutton Scotney. At the earlier (Regulation 18) stage of the plan no allocation was made due to the sewage issues in the village and residents, understandably, did not therefore feel the need to comment to the Regulation 18 consultation.

Neither the Parish Council nor residents have had any input on the site included (Brightlands) or an opportunity to weigh this site against an alternative site (Dairy Meadow).

The Parish Council therefore held a drop in session on 4th September which was attended by the prospective developer of Dairy Meadow (Pennybar). Details of the Pennybar proposals can be found on their website https://wonstonroadconsultation.co.uk/

The prospective developer of the Brightlands site (Wates Construction) declined an invitation to attend the event but supplied a document setting out their proposals (as attached below).

PLEASE READ THE ATTACHED DOCUMENTS WHICH EXPLAIN THE HISTORY AND DETAIL TO DATE AND LOOK AT THE PROPOSALS FOR EACH SITE.

What we need residents to do next

Please consider both options and then make your response to Winchester City Council as below.

You may wish to consider the size of each respective development, how it fits into the existing village, whether either site poses dangers to residents from major roads, how more cars will affect the village particularly along Oxford Road, noise, air pollution, loss of agricultural land, loss of biodiversity, habitat, risk of flooding etc. Don't forget infrastructure such as GP appointments, school places, public transport etc. and how any development of 120 homes will irreversibly alter the rural nature of Sutton Scotney.

You can find the whole Local Plan here https://www.localplan.winchester.gov.uk/assets/attach/390/303_local_plan_reg19-web-1-.pdf Pages 491-496 relate to Brightlands

You can see how to use the response Citizen Space here https://youtu.be/gk66u4iJWvc

You can respond here http://www.winchester.gov.uk/reg19

Use section Development Market Towns and Rural and use Policy SU01

Alternatively you can attend a further drop in Session at Victoria Hall to engage with Winchester City Council officers who can directly input your responses. They will be open from 3.30pm to 7.30pm on Wednesday 25th September.