All local plans are subject to public inquiry, which aims to resolve any conflicts over land use that have arisen. We published our draft local plan in May 1998, and the public inquiry opened in November 1999.

The independent government inspector who chaired the inquiry recommended that the council set its green belt boundary for at least 20 years. As a result, the inquiry was suspended, and we have since been consulting residents about the green belt and land use allocations.

The first and second sets of changes to the deposit draft were put out for public consultation during February and March 1999. The representations received were considered, and informed the drafting of the 3rd set of changes. This in turn was consulted on during March 2003. Again, representations from this period of consultation were considered and reported to council members. The resultant changes were approved by Full Council on 12 April 2005 as the City of York Local Plan Incorporating the 4th Set Of Changes – Development Control Local Plan.

As recent changes to the Planning system require local authorities to produce a new type of city-side plan (a Local Development Framework), the public inquiry on our local plan will not be reconvened.