The Buckinghamshire Local Plan (2025–2045)

This new Buckinghamshire Local Plan (the ‘New Plan’), once approved, will establish the planning strategy for Buckinghamshire (the ‘County’) from its adoption until the end of 2045. The government has imposed a new legal obligation on Buckinghamshire Council (the ‘County Council’) to accommodate between 91,000 and 95,500 homes in the County over the next two decades, with the New Plan the primary mechanism to control the locations of the homes. If there is no adopted Local Plan the County Council loses control, leaving the County highly vulnerable to ‘speculative development’ - developers seeking and gaining permission to build on unallocated or less desirable sites because the County Council cannot demonstrate how it plans to meet its mandatory housing targets.

The draft New Plan has reached the Regulation 19 (‘Reg 19’) stage, which is the final consultation phase before submission for independent examination. Once the consultation period closes, the County Council will review all submitted representations and amend the draft New Plan as it sees fit, with the amended New Plan scheduled to go before the full County Council for approval in November. Once approved by the County Council the approved New Plan, its supporting evidence and all consultation responses will be submitted to the Planning Inspectorate. An inspector will then examine the Plan to determine if it is ‘legally compliant’ and meets the tests of ‘soundness’ and if the inspector is satisfied the New Plan becomes effective.

There are two potentially very serious issues for our Parish. First the Plan includes a proposal for approximately 130 new houses in Great Kimble. This would include any of the 50 houses yet to be built under our Neighbourhood Plan between now and 2033 which are built in Great Kimble but not any built elsewhere in our Parish, while the use of ‘approximately’ in the drafting means developers can, and often do, argue successfully that more new houses can be accommodated if the new mandatory target has not been met. This contrasts with the policies in our Neighbourhood Plan (approved by a nearly 90% vote in favour) and the Parish Council has made a representation under the Reg 19 procedure requesting that this anti-democratic proposal be refused, not least because the significant increase in traffic expected from the new housing and the 2,500 new homes approved for Princes Risborough would worsen, very considerably, the ongoing congestion and related problems caused by the Little Kimble railway bridge and the increasingly insufficient local infrastructure.

The second issue is the proposed allocation of an additional 17 Traveller and Gypsy sites in and close to Marsh. The sites include land on which legal action by the County Council continues to prevent further damage, including blocking the bridleway between the centre of Marsh and the Marsh level crossing use of which (by pets and their owners, amongst others) avoids the increasing volume of traffic on Marsh Lane. Your Parish Council has made a second representation under the Reg 19 procedure that the proposed new sites be deleted, not least because, If approved, this would mean that the County Council would be rewarding those responsible for the major and ongoing breaches of planning law, many of which remain unremedied despite this being legally required.

The two representations made by Great & Little Kimble cum Marsh, your Parish Council as part of the Reg 19 process are technical documents that establish why, in light of these and other inaccuracies in the draft New Plan, the current draft is neither ‘legally compliant’ nor ‘sound’ (in each case as specified in the regulations) and so cannot be approved without amendments catering for the issues we (and others) have raised. The Parish Council have also provided our local County Councillors, Steven Broadbent and David Carroll, with copies of the representations and we encourage you to request their support as if the New Plan is not amended the County Council will be imposing major adverse changes to the character of your Parish between now and 2045.

Great & Little Kimble cum Marsh Parish Council

21st September, 2026