Evidence Base - Local Plan 2029 

As part of the local plan process the council are researching a wide variety of issues to create an evidence base for plan making.  As these assessment are made available they are being publicised on the Guildford Borough Council website. See Link.

Note that the Evidence Page contains some documentation that reflects the plan adopted in 2019.

Legal weight given to Assessment documents

Evidence Base Studies (non-statutory) - These are produced to develop the evidence base from which Local Plans are developed, but do not create polices these are part of the Local Plan.

Examples:

• Green Belt assessments
• Housing and Economic Needs Assessments (HEDNA)
• Settlement hierarchy studies
• Landscape sensitivity assessments
• Transport modelling
• Infrastructure capacity studies

Legal status:

• Not legally binding
• Not policy
• Material only insofar as they justify the Local Plan
• Can be challenged at examination if flawed, inconsistent, or disproportionate.

2. Statutory Assessments (legally required) - These have procedural legal status but still do not create policy:

• Sustainability Appraisal (SA) / Strategic Environmental Assessment (SEA)
  • Required under the Environmental Assessment of Plans and Programmes Regulations 2004
  • Must accompany the plan at each stage
  • Legal requirement: failure can quash a plan
• Habitats Regulations Assessment (HRA)
  • Required under the Conservation of Habitats and Species Regulations 2017
  • Must demonstrate no adverse effect on integrity of protected sites

Legal status:

• Legally required
• Must be “adequate”
• Can be grounds for legal challenge
• Still not policy and do not bind planning decisions directly.

Planning inspectors don’t ask if an assessment has legal status but will ask if the evidence in the assessment is

• Is the evidence proportionate?
• Is it methodologically sound?
• Does it justify the policy choices?
• Has it been properly consulted on?
• Is it consistent with national policy?

If the evidence is weak, the inspector may:

• Require review and modifications
• Reject sites
• Find the plan unsound
• Recommend withdrawal

But they do not give the evidence itself legal force.

Recently published are

Employment Needs Assessment

IIncludes an assessment of how much employment land/floorspace we'll need in Guildford until 2045 for:

• Office Uses
• Industrial Uses

Housing Needs Assessment.

See both documents linked too below

Green Belt Assessment

The Greenbelt Assessment is complicated as it will be revised due to the implementation of the NPPF2026 the details and background can be found at the linked post below.