Adopted Local Plan

The Amber Valley Borough Local Plan was adopted on 12 April 2006 and this document was prepared in accordance with the requirements of the Town and Country Planning Act 1990. It comprises of a written statement and proposals map which contain planning policies and proposals for the whole of the borough.

Saved policies

Please view our saved Local Plan policies.

Under transitional arrangements of the Planning and Compulsory Purchase Act 2004, its policies only remained in force for three years from the date of adoption. Without any form of intervention, therefore, the policies in the Local Plan would have ceased to be in force after 12 April 2009.

In order to prevent a policy vacuum until the new Local Development Framework is in place, the Secretary of State can direct policies to be saved for longer than 3 years under certain circumstances. The government has published a protocol on how to save policies in 'old style' Local Plans. The process requires the local planning authority to assess its policies against a number of criteria, including whether;

• Where appropriate, there is a clear central strategy;
• Policies have regard to the community strategy;
• Policies are in general conformity with the regional spatial strategy;
• Policies are necessary and don't repeat national or regional policy;
• There are effective policies for any parts of an authority's area where significant change in the use or development of land or conservation of the area is sufficient.

There are also a number of issues the government will have particular regard to in assessing whether a policy should be saved. Examples include policies that support the delivery of housing, policies on green belt boundaries, policies that support economic regeneration or that which reduce impact on climate change and safeguard water resources.

In due course, all policies in the Local Plan will be replaced by new policies in the Local Development Framework (LDF), it was important to seek to 'save' any Local Plan policies that will be needed to determine planning applications and guide development in the meantime.

All Local Plan policies were assessed against the criteria set out in the government's protocol. The majority of policies remained relevant and were consistent with the requirements of the protocol, and the Secretary of State was requested to save all but three of the Local Plan policies. On 8 April 2009 the Secretary of State agreed to save these policies and the direction can be found in the links to further information on this page.

The three policies that were not saved related to matters that have now been taken over by events. In these circumstances, the Secretary of State was not requested to save these policies as they were no longer required. Click on the links below to read more about each policy.

H2 phasing of housing development ˅ TP11 highway improvements ˅ EN4 amendments to the green belt ˅

Inspector's report

• Letter from the Planning Inspectorate
• Contents page
• Executive overview title page
• Chapter 1 Local Plan strategy
• Chapter 2 Economic development and regeneration
• Appendix of objections to policy ER2
• Chapter 3 Housing
• Chapter 4 Town centres
• Chapter 5 Transportation
• Chapter 6 Environment
• Chapter 7 Leisure
• Chapter 8 Monitoring
• Appendix 1
• Appendix 2
• Appendix 3
• Glossary

Contact the team directly on 01773 841584 or email LDF@ambervalley.gov.uk