Gateway 1 assessment
We have completed an important first step in producing the new Folkestone & Hythe district local plan - the Gateway 1 assessment.
There are three ‘gateways’ in the new local plan process - Gateways 2 and 3 will follow later and will be led by independent planning Inspectors. Gateway 1 is a self-assessment prepared by the council.
At the Gateway 1 stage, government guidance says that local authorities should publish a short summary of the work they’ve undertaken to start preparing their local plan.
Local plan timetable
In May 2026, we published a local plan timetable setting out how we will work towards adopting the new local plan within the government’s 30-month timeframe.
The local plan process is new, and we will be among the first authorities to prepare a plan under this system, so there may be changes to the timetable. We will publish any amendments to the timetable on our website, and we will report progress at key stages.
We have complied with other requirements of the new system, including publishing our Notice of Intention to Commence Local Plan Preparation and holding our Scoping Consultation.
Project management and governance arrangements
In June 2026, we agreed that the Chief Planner could approve key stages of the local plan process under delegated authority to help meet the government’s 30-month timetable. We also established a new cross-party Planning Policy Steering Group to help guide the new local plan. Key consultation stages will still go to Cabinet to ensure full oversight of the process.
We have prepared a project management framework which sets out the legal requirements, programme structure and governance arrangements for the new local plan. This includes a Project Initiation Document (PID) and risk register.
We are establishing a Local Plan Programme Board to monitor progress on the local plan. The board will also ensure that the risk register remains up to date, any new risks are identified and mitigation is put in place.
We are identifying resources for the local plan through the council’s budget setting process.
Consulting and engaging on the local plan
We set out our initial proposals for consulting and engaging on the local plan in the Scoping Consultation, which highlighted potential engagement methods designed to reach different target audiences, including under-represented groups.
We have prepared an engagement strategy, and this was taken to our Planning Policy Steering Group for comment on 20 October 2026. The strategy will be updated throughout the process, as we hold consultation events and learn from the comments we receive.
We are holding meetings with key stakeholders, and we will maintain these contacts throughout the process. We will seek to agree Statements of Common Ground with key organisations before the plan is finalised and moves to examination.
Scoping the anticipated content of the local plan
We have begun to scope out the content of the local plan, including by gathering evidence about the district and people’s views on key issues affecting the area.
The Strategic Environmental Assessment (SEA) Scoping Report (August 2026) sets out baseline information about the district. We publish an Annual Equality and Diversity Report which provides further information on the district’s population, and comparisons with Kent and the wider southeast [Equality and diversity | Folkestone & Hythe District Council]. The district’s Authority Monitoring Reports also provide information on the performance of the council’s adopted local plans, housing supply, employment land supply, the vitality of the district’s main towns and other issues.
We will be commissioning specialist evidence to guide the new local plan, but this baseline information provides a useful starting point.
After the National Planning Policy Framework (NPPF) was published in August 2026, we assessed existing local plan policies against the new national decision-making policies in the NPPF to see what scope there may be for locally specific policies in the new plan.
We gathered people’s views on the key issues facing the district through the local plan Scoping Consultation. This has included sessions with town and parish councils, the council’s Youth Forum and meetings with key stakeholders and statutory organisations. We are currently considering the consultation comments we received.
Before this, we undertook consultation on the draft Corporate Plan 2025-2030 ‘Our District, Our World’. The consultation ran from 25 July to 29 September 2024, and comments submitted to the Corporate Plan consultation provide additional information to inform the next stages of the local plan.
We have begun drafting a new local plan vision. The draft vision was discussed by our Planning Policy Steering Group on 20 October 2026, and comments from the group, alongside the results of the Scoping Consultation, will be used to refine the vision further.
Under the new system, the local plan vision needs to be supported by no more than ten measurable outcomes. We have drafted a set of measurable outcomes which were considered by the steering group alongside the vision. The measurable outcomes will be refined further as the local plan progresses.
We have calculated our housing requirement using the government’s standard method, which sets out how many homes each local authority should provide. This changes annually as new national information is published. Our requirement is currently 820 homes a year.
We are finalising the scope of work to identify the needs for homes of different sizes, types and tenures, including affordable homes, through undertaking a Housing and Economic Needs Assessment for the district.
We have undertaken two ‘calls for sites’, where landowners and promoters put forward land that they wish to be allocated for development or protection in the local plan. We are currently assessing the sites that were submitted and consulting statutory organisations. In addition, we are also exploring other potential development opportunities, such as those identified in the Place Plan for Folkestone Town Centre (2021), which explored the potential for regeneration in Folkestone.
We undertook a comprehensive study of growth options for the district in 2016 and 2017 to inform the Core Strategy Review. We will review the growth options work, in light of sites submitted during the call for sites, to identify any new high level options for the local plan.
Progressing the Strategic Environmental Assessment (SEA)
We are required to assess the likely environmental effects of the local plan from the earliest stage, and the results of the assessment should influence the next stage of the plan. This is currently carried out through the Strategic Environmental Assessment (SEA) process.
For the first stage in the process, the council commissioned Land Use Consultants (LUC) to undertake the SEA of the local plan. The SEA Scoping Report was finalised in August 2026, and the SEA report was consulted on alongside the Scoping Consultation on the local plan, from 7 September to 16 October 2026. We are currently assessing the comments that were submitted to the SEA Scoping Report.
More information on our work to prepare for the new local plan can be found in the report below.
Gateway 1 Assessment Report (PDF, 357KB)
The government also encourages local authorities to complete a Readiness Checker table and this is provided below.