West Sussex County Council: Regional Planning and the South East Plan

Links to Sections

• South East Plan
• South East Plan: Gypsies and Travellers
• Gatwick Area Sub-Regional Strategy
• Sussex Coast Sub-Regional Strategy
• South East Plan: Consultation 2005
• South East Plan: Housing Distributions
• South East Plan: First Draft
• Consultation and Material for SEERA

The South East England Regional Assembly (SEERA) is based in Guildford, Surrey, and is responsible for advising Government on regional planning policy.

SEERA has prepared the South East Plan (SEP) and submitted it to the Government on 31 March 2006.

• View the plan on SEERA's web site.
• Read the County Council's response (pdf, 52KB).

A 12-week period of consultation ran from 31 March to 23 June 2006.

• View SEERA's consultation page.

Examination in Public

There was an Examination in Public (EiP), from 28 November 2006 to 30 March 2007, organised by the Government Office for the South East (GOSE).

• View GOSE's regional planning page.
• View the dedicated web site for the South East Plan EiP - it will be updated regularly throughout the EiP process.

The Preliminary list of Matters and Participants for the EiP was published on 31 August 2006.  A consultation ran between 31 August and 28 September 2006, when representations could be made on the draft list, including making suggestions that other matters should be discussed or that other persons or organisations should be invited to take part in the debate. 

The EiP Panel considered the representations received and a Final List of Matters and Participants was published in October 2006.

A timetable showing the proposed timing of the debates on the selected Matters was also published on the EiP website.

On approval, the South East Plan will be the Regional Spatial Plan for the South East Region and will cover the period up to 2026.  In addition to policies for the whole region, the South East Plan will contain more detalied proposals for nine sub-regions.  These sub-regional policies relate to areas where a distinct approach is required to deal with important strategic issues that cross local authority boundaries.  The parts of West Sussex covered by sub-regional strategies include the Gatwick Area and the Sussex Coast.

Work that has informed the draft South East Plan as submitted to Government

Under the terms of the Planning and Compulsory Purchase Act 2004, and following earlier studies of the sub-regional areas (Gatwick, pdf, 1.47MB, and Sussex Coast, pdf, 2.15MB - very large files*), SEERA commissioned the principal strategic authorities in the sub-regions to submit material setting out what should be included in the SEP.  West Sussex County Council was the lead authority on the Gatwick Area. East Sussex was the principal authority for the Sussex Coast.  Final reports in the form of draft Sub-Regional Strategies were submitted to SEERA in November 2004.

Read more about the strategies by clicking on these links: 

• Gatwick Sub-Regional Strategy;
• Sussex Coastal Towns Sub-Regional Strategy.

SEERA held a public consultation on the draft SEP from 24 January 2005 for 12 weeks.  For more information, view our Draft South East Plan Consultation page.

SEERA commissioned the lead authorities in the sub-regions to submit advice on how growth should be distributed at district level.  This advice was submitted to SEERA by 9 December 2005.  For more information, view our South East Plan: Housing Distributions page.