The final public consultation on Sevenoaks District Council's Local Plan opens on Thursday 23 July and runs eight weeks to 17 September. Here is the council's confirmed portal, email and postal address for comments, and how to make yours count.

The final round of public consultation on Sevenoaks District Council’s Local Plan opens on Thursday 23 July and runs for eight weeks, until 17 September, and the council has now published the exact ways residents can put their comments on the record. It is the last chance to have a formal say on where 17,460 new homes go across the district before the plan is sent to a Government inspector. (Sevenoaks District Council, Another chance to comment on the new Local Plan)

We reported the Cabinet decision to hold the consultation earlier this month, and set out the full site-by-site detail when the revised plan was published in June. This piece is the practical one: what opens on Thursday, and how to respond so your comment reaches the inspector.

What this stage is

This is the Regulation 19 Publication stage, the formal step before the plan goes for examination. The document on the table is settled: the council is no longer inviting suggestions for new sites, but asking whether the plan it has published is “sound” and legally compliant. That distinction matters, because it is the test the Government’s inspector will apply, and comments that speak to it carry more weight than a general objection to building. The plan covers development across the district from 2027 to 2042. (Sevenoaks District Council, Another chance to comment on the new Local Plan)

The headline figure has not changed: the plan must find room for 17,460 homes, a target the council has repeatedly described as around a 63 per cent increase on its previous requirement and one it says was forced on it by the Government’s rewritten Green Belt rules. (Sevenoaks District Council, Council considers updated Local Plan to meet Government housing target)

In the council’s notice, Cllr Nigel Williams, the Cabinet Member for Development and Infrastructure, put the scale in blunt terms. “Residents have a final opportunity to comment on the updated Local Plan for eight weeks from 23 July,” he said, adding that he appreciated “many residents are frustrated and angry at the Government’s preposterous housing target and the requirement to develop Grey and Green Belt land.” He said the required growth is “more than all other Local Plans combined since the District was created 1974, and over 2.5 times larger than all the homes in Swanley.” (Sevenoaks District Council, Another chance to comment on the new Local Plan)

How to have your say

The council has confirmed three ways to comment once the consultation opens on 23 July: (Sevenoaks District Council, Another chance to comment on the new Local Plan)

  • Online, through the council’s consultation portal at www.sevenoaks.gov.uk/reg19.
  • By email, to planning.policy@sevenoaks.gov.uk.
  • By post, to Regulation 19 Publication Comments, Planning Policy, Sevenoaks District Council, Argyle Road, Sevenoaks, Kent TN13 1HG.

Paper copies of the plan will be available to read at local libraries and at the council offices in Sevenoaks during the consultation. Comments must arrive by the closing date of 17 September; late responses may not be considered. (Sevenoaks District Council, Another chance to comment on the new Local Plan)

What it means for you

If a site near you is allocated in the plan, the principle of building there becomes much harder to resist when a detailed application later comes forward, so this is the stage at which to engage even if nothing is being built on your street yet. Because the inspector is testing whether the plan is sound and lawful, the most effective comments explain why a specific allocation or policy fails those tests, rather than objecting to growth in general.

To check what is already proposed near a particular address, use the council’s planning portal. Our guide to Sevenoaks planning applications explains how to search it by postcode, and our explainer on council tax bands covers how new housing feeds through to local services and bills.

What happens next

After the consultation closes on 17 September, officers will collate every response and submit the plan, together with the comments, to the Planning Inspectorate, with a Government-appointed inspector expected to examine it in 2027 before it can be adopted. (Sevenoaks District Council, Council considers updated Local Plan to meet Government housing target) There is a longer shadow over the process too: the Government has confirmed Sevenoaks District Council will be abolished in 2028 and folded into a new West Kent unitary council, so it is that new authority, not the district council running the consultation now, that will ultimately inherit the plan and the job of delivering most of the homes in it.

Sources

Image: Handsome brick houses, Sevenoaks by David Martin, CC BY-SA 2.0, via Geograph.