Sevenoaks District Local Plan
What is the Local Plan?
Sevenoaks District Council has drafted a new Local Plan to cover the period between 2027 and 2042 – an important document that sets out what can be built and where over the next 15 years.
Consultation
Phase 3 of the Regulation 18 consultation ran from 23 October to 11 December 2025.
The consultation was run by Sevenoaks District Council (SDC), which is the local planning authority responsible for creating the Local Plan. SDC publishes all consultation documents, manages the formal response process, and collects feedback from residents, businesses, and organisations across the district. Edenbridge Town Council, like other town and parish councils, community groups, and individual residents, was able to participate as a consultee in this process. This involved reviewing the proposals and submitting our own formal response to SDC. Although we were not involved in running or managing the consultation itself, we hosted several drop-in sessions for residents to find out more about the proposals and how they could put forward their views.
Our role is to represent Edenbridge’s interests by providing detailed feedback on how the proposed policies and site allocations might affect our town and its residents. We worked closely with a planning consultant to examine the documents and prepare our response. You can view our responses below.
Town Council’s response to Regulation 18 (Part 3) – December 2025
Town Council response to Regulation 18 (Part 3) – December 2025
Edenbridge Infrastructure Delivery Plan (Proposal to support growth proposed within the Regulation 18 (phase 3) Local Plan)
What next?
SDC will consider the comments made through the Regulation 18 (Part 3) consultation, and publish a revised version of the Local Plan in summer 2026. This is called Regulation 19 publication.
By the end of 2026, SDC intends to submit the Local Plan for examination by the Planning Inspectorate. This submission will include all the comments made during the Regulation 19 publication.
The timetable for the examination, which will include public hearings, will be set by the Planning Inspectorate. The examination is expected to take place in 2027.
If the Planning Inspectorate concludes the Local Plan is sound, the Council will adopt it, and it will be used to help determine planning applications.
Previous consultations
Regulation 18 – Town Council’s response
Edenbridge Town Council is a statutory consultee and as such, responded to Sevenoaks District Council’s Regulation 18 (Phase 1 and 2) consultation on its draft of the Plan in 2023 and 2024.
Town Council response to Regulation 18 (Part 1) consultation – January 2023
Supplementary information to Regulation 18 (Part 1) Questions
Town Council response to Regulation 18 (Part 2) consultation – January 2024
Regulation 18 (Part 2)
This continued to focus on development opportunities in built up areas but also proposed potential Green Belt land for development including sites in Edenbridge such as Breezehurst Farm and Crouch House Road.
Councillors agreed to engage a planning consultant to ensure we submitted the best possible representation for Edenbridge. Overall, the Council believes that the amount of additional Green Belt proposed for release around Edenbridge, when taken together with already committed Green Belt release, is excessive and disproportionate when compared to other towns in the district such as Sevenoaks and Swanley.
The Council supports certain sites for development, such as Edenbridge War Memorial Hospital and Leathermarket. However, the Council objects to certain development proposals, such as Breezehurst Farm, where it considers that the scale of housing development and the release of the site would represent an excessive level of growth for Edenbridge during the plan period, when considered together with Green Belt development already committed and other Green Belt sites around the town also proposed for release.
In March 2024 the Town Council wrote a further letter to Sevenoaks District Council regarding Pedham Place: Letter to SDC re Pedham Place.