A SIX-week consultation with businesses and developers will help shape the future of Blackburn with Darwen.

Work is ongoing to produce the council’s new local plan, which will set out the land use planning strategy for the borough for the next five years.

Blackburn with Darwen’s current local plan runs until 2026 but new Government directives mean councils now have to produce a local plan every five years.

Borough regeneration boss Cllr Phil Riley said: “The responses we get will give us the basis to go forward for the next stages of work on the local plan in terms of development sites.

“It’s the next stage in the work that is being done to produce a new local plan as called for by the government.

“We adopted our current local plan in 2015 and we thought that would suffice through to 2026 but now they have to be produced every five years.”

In a report presented before the council’s executive board, Cllr Riley said: “A Housing and Economic Needs Assessment (HENAS) was carried out and considered a future where job growth in the order of around 5,000 jobs over the next 18 years is envisaged.

“The HENAS works through the potential housing need that would be associated with the Economic Growth Scenario which suggests a potential need for 360 to 410 new homes each year between 2018 and 2036.

“The council approved a new local development scheme in February 2018 that set out the intention to develop a single local plan to replace the core strategy and local plan part 2.

“This consultation on 'issues and options' marks the first stage towards the development of a new local plan. The intention is to consult on the Issues and Options document in February and March 2019 for a period of six weeks.

The issues and options consultation document sets out the main points to consider in producing a new local plan.

“The consultation document covers vision and strategic objectives, growth options, spatial issues and thematic issues covering employment, housing, public facilities, environment, quality of place, and access to jobs and services.

“The key risks revolve around the need to update the existing adopted local plan and addressing the proposed growth options that feature in the issues and options document. The consultation on issues and options addresses both of these risks by demonstrating the council’s intention to develop a new local plan; and seeking consultation responses on potential growth options.”

The public consultation will take place for six weeks during February and March, using the council website, direct mailing to statutory consultees and other interested parties, social media and public events.