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City Plan scoping

The City Plan sets out a framework of planning policies to guide development in the city over a period of around 15 years.

It currently has two parts:

  • City Plan Part One, adopted in 2016
  • City Plan Part Two, adopted 2022

A new City Plan for a better Brighton & Hove

It is now ten years since City Plan Part One was adopted. Much has changed since then both nationally and in the city itself.

We began work on the new City Plan with a key issues consultation which ran from November 2024 to January 2025. We received over 700 responses, including 200 from young people through our youth survey. Your views are helping shape our understanding of what matters most to residents, businesses and stakeholders.

Since that consultation, the government has introduced a new national plan-making system that we must follow as we prepare the City Plan. It provides a clearer, more consistent approach for councils to decide what development is needed, where it should go, and how places should be protected and improved.

National Policy Framework

The government will also soon publish an updated National Planning Policy Framework (NPPF). This will introduce clearer national planning policies for England, covering many matters that were previously included in local plans.

Under the new system, the City Plan must be simpler, shorter, and prepared more quickly. It will set out a vision and spatial strategy for the city, focusing on site allocations and key local issues.

This means some issues raised in the last consultation can no longer be covered where they are now addressed in the NPPF. Our scoping consultation document explains which issues are affected.

This scoping consultation

The new plan making system requires us to carry out a scoping consultation.

As this process will be similar to last year’s key issues consultation, we are taking a ‘high level’ approach in order to build on, and not duplicate, the earlier engagement.

All comments previously submitted during the key issues consultation remain relevant and will be considered as we progress the plan.

If you didn’t engage in the earlier key issues consultation, we'd love to hear your views. If you did and have more to add, we'd be glad to hear from you again.

As with the key issues consultation, this consultation is about:

  • identifying the main challenges and opportunities facing the area
  • what the plan should contain, particularly now that some issues will be addressed by national planning policies
  • identifying the local issues that the plan should still address

We also want to hear how you would like to us to engage with you (individuals, organisations and businesses) in the preparation of the plan.

Keep in touch

If you would like to keep informed about the next stage of City Plan and other planning policy news, please sign up to receive our news.

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