Cotswold residents are being urged to have their say on the future development of the District.

Cotswold District Council planners are currently working on the Local Development Framework (LDF), which will replace the Cotswold District Local Plan and will guide development and land use in the District to 2026

The first and main document to be prepared under the LDF will be the Cotswold District Core Strategy. Work on the Core Strategy has focused, in recent months, on collecting information on the main settlements, which has included consulting the larger town and parish councils. This has helped in gaining a better understanding of what communities are likely to want for their settlements in the future.

The information that has been collected has given an indication of each settlement’s sustainability and potential suitability for further development.

As part of the Core Strategy development, a Settlement Hierarchy Topic Paper has now been produced.

The purpose of the Paper is to seek views on a number of possible options for grouping Cotswold settlements, based on their current roles and existing service provision.

This will then help to inform how future development should be shared between Cotswold settlements. The Paper is currently out for consultation and the deadline for submitting comments is Friday 9th January 2009.

To comment, please log onto http://consult.cotswold.gov.uk/portal to view the document and to submit comments. For further information, please contact Tiina Emsley, Principal Planning Policy Officer, on 01285 623547.