North Yorkshire Council has published the formal notice beginning preparation of a new Local Plan, with minerals and waste policy now included in its scope. The council published the notice on 16 October and updated the plan timetable that day. The first public scoping consultation is scheduled to run from 26 October to 7 December.
A first chance to shape the plan’s scope
The consultation is an early stage in a long planning process. It will ask what the plan should cover and how the council should involve people in later stages. It is not a consultation on a completed strategy, final policies or a chosen list of development sites.
That distinction matters for residents, businesses and landowners. The council has previously invited sites to be put forward for consideration, but a submitted site is not thereby selected for development. The scoping exercise comes before the detailed evidence work and later public consultation on emerging policies and proposed allocations.
The formal notice is required under Regulation 19 of the Town and Country Planning (Local Planning) (England) Regulations 2026. It provides advance information about the area the plan will cover, the subjects it is expected to address and how people can take part as preparation proceeds.
Minerals and waste join the wider plan
The 16 October timetable update brought minerals and waste planning policy for North Yorkshire into the new Local Plan rather than developing it through a separate minerals and waste document. Those issues will sit alongside the plan’s wider work on the economy, communities, environmental resilience, the quality of the environment and design.
Integrating these subjects means the council’s evidence and policy work will need to consider how decisions about mineral resources and waste management relate to other land-use choices. The inclusion does not itself approve a quarry, waste facility or other proposal. Nor does it immediately replace the existing adopted minerals and waste policies. They remain part of the planning framework until changed through the relevant statutory process.
The plan covers the North Yorkshire Council area, but not the North York Moors or Yorkshire Dales National Parks, which have their own local plans. The City of York and the North York Moors National Park Authority are also incorporating minerals and waste matters into their respective emerging plans. The county plan will therefore not set policy for those separate planning areas.
A multi-year route to adoption
The present timetable envisages a further consultation on the plan’s content and supporting evidence from September to October 2027. That stage is expected to address the emerging vision, objectives, spatial strategy, policy topics, constraints and the scope of strategic environmental assessment.
Consultation on the proposed Local Plan is scheduled for autumn 2028, after which the council expects to submit it for independent examination in March 2029. The timetable gives 26 October 2029 as the target adoption date, subject to the outcome of that examination.
These milestones describe the council’s current programme rather than a guarantee that each step will happen on the stated date. Evidence, public representations and examination can lead to further work or changes. The immediate milestone is the scoping consultation: it gives people an opportunity to identify subjects the plan should address and how the council should engage before detailed proposals take shape.
