Local Plan monitoring

The Authority Monitoring Reports (AMRs) report on the performance of the Council's planning policies as set out in the Local Plan.

The requirement for a local authority to produce Authority Monitoring Reports is set out in Section 113 of the Localism Act 2011.

The Act requires every authority to produce and make publicly available a series of reports containing information on the implementation of the Local Development Scheme and the extent to which the planning policies set out in the Local Plan documents are being achieved.

Section 113 of the Localism Act 2011 amended Section 35 of the Planning and Compulsory Purchase Act 2004, which required local authorities to produce an overall Annual Monitoring Report to submit to the Secretary of State at the end of the calendar year.

This requirement was removed in April 2012 and local authorities now have greater flexibility as to when to produce and publish the reports.

Part 8, Regulation 34 of the Town and Country Planning (Local Development) (England) Regulations 2012 sets out the information that AMRs must contain, including how to report on a policy that specifies an annual number and how to report on a policy specified in the Local Plan that is not being implemented. It also states that local authorities must make any up-to-date information, which they have collected for monitoring purposes, available as soon as possible after the information becomes available.

In accordance with the legislation, we produce a series of topic-based AMRs which can be downloaded below. The timescale covered in each report is determined by the nature of the topic in terms of its strategic importance and sensitivity to changing circumstance.