Foreword By Councillor Steven McCormick

The challenge is to produce a Local Plan that provides homes and jobs but also protects and enhances the area’s character, natural and built environment, wildlife, and heritage assets for future generations to enjoy.

A home for everyone is the challenge we face as a society.  We are determined to play our part in providing those homes. We want to make sure that high quality homes, of the right type and size are fit for today’s needs and ready for the future with supporting infrastructure and amenities modern living demands.

The borough of Epsom & Ewell is a very special, unique, and beautiful place for all who live and work here.  We want to keep it this way for generations to come, to help manage the future of the area and outline the direction we are heading.  This Local Plan sets out how we propose to meet these sometimes-conflicting demands and offers a vision for the borough as a prosperous, safe, and healthy place where people from all communities want, and are able, to live and work. 

We have developed a strategy which we believe will not only provide a significant number of affordable homes for current residents, our children and our grandchildren, but which also addresses several other challenges we are facing.

Growing families struggle to find suitable and affordable homes to move to.  Our healthcare providers and schools struggle to recruit key workers.  We aim to deliver homes local families can afford, as well as a greater variety of smaller homes and apartments to help young people get on the property ladder and others to downsize if they choose. 

For the majority of our residents the Local Plan will deliver benefits and it will be good news.  For those who will be most impacted we are committed to working with you to do everything we can to minimise the impact. 

We believe our Local Plan provides a framework for the borough to grow in a strong and positive way so everyone will have the opportunity to live in an affordable, vibrant area with a strong growing economy.

Putting the plan together is a huge, complicated task, and finding the right balance for the borough is challenging and some decisions have not been easy. 

The Local Plan will be made available on the 1st February 2023 for six weeks, for you to tell us if we have done enough, not done enough or maybe done too much.  It is your chance to input and influence the plan for the borough.