Wolverhampton Local Plan

We are preparing a new Local Plan for Wolverhampton and would like to hear your views. This Plan is designed to support the growth and regeneration of the City and to protect and enhance the characteristics that make Wolverhampton a special place to live, work and visit.

To do this, the Plan will make some key decisions about the future development of Wolverhampton up to 2042, including:

• where larger housing and employment developments will be located
• where infrastructure investment will take place
• areas of the City where development will be restricted, and areas of environmental and historic importance which will be priorities for conservation and enhancement 
• a set of ‘policies’ – the rules which are used to determine planning applications to address big issues, such as climate change, environment, design, centres, transport and waste

Wolverhampton has high housing and employment growth needs but is a very constrained and densely developed urban area with valuable pockets of green belt.  The Preferred Option will deliver a balanced amount of sustainable development, including allocating 63 hectares of employment (industrial) land and sites for 10,300 new homes by 2042. These will all be in the urban area - making best use of brownfield sites, vacant properties and poor quality industrial land - and built at high densities, whilst protecting local character and providing a mix of house types to meet local needs. Most of these sites have already been granted planning permission or are allocated in other Plans. 

This means we are not proposing to develop any Green Belt sites and some other greenfield sites which were previously considered.

More information is provided on this webpage about the consultation, including how to get involved, an online survey/ response form, consultation documents, an interactive map and evidence documents.

What is a Local Plan?

All Councils are legally required to write and consult on a Local Plan that decides where the new development that is needed for the next 15 years will be located, how development will be designed and managed and which areas will be protected from development.

The Plan must consider the amount of land required to support future jobs and provide new housing, and where any other development is needed. The Plan also details where any extra infrastructure is needed to support development, such as schools, green space, health services, public transport, cycle routes and highway improvements.

The Plan will go through two stages of consultation. This Issues & Preferred Options consultation is the first stage and the second stage is called the Publication Plan. It is then submitted to the Government and an independent Planning Inspector is appointed to carry out a public examination of the Plan.  If the Planning Inspector concludes that the Plan has been correctly prepared, then it can be adopted by the Council. When adopted, the Plan is used to help decide planning applications, alongside a range of national policy and guidance.  

Do we have a Local Plan in place now?

Yes, Wolverhampton has a Local Plan which is made up of a number of documents:

• The Black Country Core Strategy (BCCS) (2011)
• Area Action Plans (AAPs) (2014-16) for the main regeneration areas in the City
• Parts of the Wolverhampton Unitary Development Plan (2006)

These Plans together provided the framework to allocate development to meet Wolverhampton’s needs up to 2026. These allocations were made through the Bilston Corridor, Stafford Road Corridor and Wolverhampton City Centre AAPs. 

In addition to the Wolverhampton Local Plan, two Neighbourhood Plans were prepared by local community groups covering Tettenhall and Heathfield Park. These Neighbourhood Plans can only be updated by the local community and are not part of the Wolverhampton Local Plan work.    

Why are we preparing the Wolverhampton Local Plan?

The Local Plan for Wolverhampton is now over five years old. The Government requires Councils to have Local Plans that are less than five years old and based on up-to-date information. We need to prepare the Wolverhampton Local Plan now to ensure that we can plan for new homes and jobs in the right places. 

When did we start preparing the Wolverhampton Local Plan?

Between 2017 and 2022 City of Wolverhampton Council worked with Dudley, Sandwell and Walsall Councils to prepare a Black Country Plan which would replace the Black Country Core Strategy. This work included an Issues and Options consultation, invitations for developers and landowners to submit potential development sites, and consultation took place in summer 2021 on a Draft Black Country Plan supported by a comprehensive range of evidence. There were a large number of responses to this consultation.

In October 2022, work ceased on the Black Country Plan and the four Councils decided to prepare separate Local Plans. Wolverhampton Council decided to prepare a Wolverhampton Local Plan (WLP) which builds on the significant work and consultation which has already taken place on the Black Country Plan.

The WLP Issues and Preferred Options consultation takes full account of the planning issues raised in the Draft Black Country Plan consultation responses (where these relate to Wolverhampton) and draws on the most up-to-date evidence and national policy.

Wolverhampton Local Plan UK General Data Protection Regulation (‘UK GDPR’) Privacy Notice

For the purpose of the Wolverhampton Local Plan the Data controller and Data protection officer for the City of Wolverhampton Council can be contacted either by:

• Writing: Data Protection Officer, City of Wolverhampton Council, Information Governance Team, Civic Centre, St. Peter's Square, Wolverhampton, WV1 1SH
• Email: dpo@wolverhampton.gov.uk 
• Telephone: 01902 551155

The type of personal information we collect

We currently collect and process the following information:

• Personal identifiers – this may include first name, last name, username or similar identifier, title.
• Contact details – this may include postal address, email address, contact telephone number(s). 
• Equality monitoring data – such as age, legal marital or registered civil partnership status, that is collected on a voluntary basis and is anonymised.

How we get the personal information and why we have it 

Most of the personal information we process is provided to us directly by you for one of the following reasons:

• For the purpose of registering your views in respect of the Wolverhampton Local Plan.
• For the purpose of allowing us to keep you informed on the progress of the Wolverhampton Local Plan, and other relevant planning documents.
• For the purpose of informing you of future planning consultations you may be interested in. 

We use the information that you have given us in order to: 

• Analyse the consultation response data gathered.
• Keep you informed of subsequent consultations or stages of the Wolverhampton Local Plan or other relevant plans. 

What entitles us to process your personal information? 

Processing is necessary for the performance of a public task (the preparation of the Wolverhampton Local Plan) carried out in the public interest or in the exercise of official authority vested in the Council. Processing is kept to a minimum and data will only be processed in accordance with the law and may be used by the council to contact you if necessary regarding your submission, such as to clarify your consultation responses. The legal basis for this processing is in the tasks that we carry out in the public interest, namely the 2004 Planning and Compulsory Purchase Act, in conjunction with the Town and Country Planning Regulations 2012 (as amended). The personal information you provide will be processed in accordance with the requirements of the Data Protection Act 2018 and UK GDPR. You will not be asked for any unnecessary information. We will take all reasonable precautions to protect your personal data from accidental or deliberate loss or unauthorised disclosure.

With whom we will be sharing your personal information? 

Where you have made comments/ representations in response to a planning policy consultation document, when displaying and reporting the outcome of the statutory consultation stage in relation to the relevant consultation document, we will publish with all interested parties and make available for public viewing sharing your name, organisation (if applicable) and your comments. Please note that your contact details: postal address, email address, telephone number, signatures and any equality data monitoring will not be shared or published. The Council may consult you in relation to future planning policy documents.  When other agencies are involved in Local Plan preparation, we may need to share details about you to enable us to work together for your benefit. Information will only be shared with third parties if they have genuine and lawful need for it. Information shared on this basis will not be reused for any other purpose. Other organisations that we may share information with include the Planning Inspector appointed by the Secretary of State or any other similar individual. For further information please visit the Council's Privacy Policy.

How long do we store your data for? 

Your information is securely stored on the servers of the Council, based at the addresses given above. We keep your personal data for only as long as it is necessary to fulfil the purposes it was collected for, including for any legal, or reporting requirements. We will retain your data for 10 years after adoption of the Wolverhampton Local Plan to evidence that a fair and transparent process has been followed. We will then dispose your information by erasing the digital files from the servers.

Your rights

• Access - you have a right to know if we are processing your data.  We will tell you either way.  If we are processing your data, you have further rights such as to be provided with a copy of it. Survey/ response forms include the option if you would prefer not to be contacted in future about the Local Plan. 
• Rectification – if we are holding inaccurate information you can ask us to correct it.
• Erasure - in certain circumstances you can ask us to destroy or delete your information.
• Restriction – in certain circumstances you can ask us to put a hold on the processing of your information.
• Objection – again you can ask us to stop processing your personal data.

Complaints 

The data we are collecting is your personal data, and you have considerable say over what happens to it. You have the right: 

1. to see what data we have about you
2. to ask us to stop using your data, but keep it on record
3. to ask to have all or some of your data deleted or corrected
4. to lodge a complaint with the independent Information Commissioner (ICO) if you think we are not handling your data fairly or in accordance with the law. 

You can contact the ICO by visiting their website, calling 0303 123 1113, or writing to: Information Commissioner’s Office, Wycliffe House Water Lane, Wilmslow, Cheshire, SK9 5AF