The Core Strategy

The Strategy sets out a long-term spatial vision for minerals and waste planning in Hampshire and contains the primary policies and proposals to deliver that vision.

Core Strategy (2007) (PDF, 1,320KB)

What's going on now?

The 10 week consultation on possible changes to the Core Strategy (2007) has now closed. To find out more please see the Changes to the Minerals and Waste Core Strategy webpage. This consultation occurred because the County Council intends to replace and update a number of policies. This is necessary for two reasons:

Firstly, the regional policy for primary aggregates shown in The South East Plan is under review. This regional policy sets the amount of primary aggregates that Hampshire needs to supply every year. Previously, the South East England Regional Assembly (SEERA)* pressed the Government to significantly reduce the regional target (the 'apportionment') for land-won sand and gravel to better reflect recent sales trends. The progress of the regional review and the apportionment will be updated on the Hampshire Minerals Plan webpage.

Secondly, the policies on wharves and depots also need to be reworked in response to a recent High Court judgement (see below).

(* Note: SEERA was dissolved on 31 March 2009 and a new body, the South East England Partnership Board has become responsible for regional planning.)

What's about to happen?

The responses received during the consulation period will be collated and summarised in a report, early in 2010.

Previous work

Although the Hampshire, Portsmouth and Southampton Minerals and Waste Local Plan (1998) has been mostly superseeded by the Core Strategy (2007), there are still some site specific policies that have been retained until the Hampshire Minerals Plan and Hampshire Waste Plan are adopted.

Associated British Ports (ABP) successfully applied to the High Court to have part of the Core Strategy (2007) ‘quashed’. The details of the challenge are shown in the Judgment and a subsequent Order was made that policies S13, S14 and DC18 – Wharves and Rail Depots – and consequential references are deleted.

The adopted Core Strategy (2007) with the quashed policies struck through and its Key Diagram with supporting documents are available on The adopted Core Strategy (2007) webpage.