Residents in the Vale will get an early chance to influence an important planning document from February. The district council is launching a consultation on a draft of its Local Plan – the planning document that will map out the strategic sites for the Vale’s housing allocation until 2029. The consultation is due to launch on 28 February and will run for ten weeks. The Vale will be publishing additional evidence four weeks into the consultation on 28 March to help further inform people about the plan. At this early stage, the version of the local plan being consulted on is based on housing need evidence that supported the South East Plan. The housing requirement figures in the final local plan are likely to be different. Nevertheless, it is a sound basis for this early draft of the Local Plan and will allow everybody to let the district council know if the plan is heading in the right direction. The Vale will be submitting the final version of the local plan in December of this year. There will be another consultation before then, based on the latest local housing need evidence available at the time. During the consultation, the Vale will be hosting a number of public exhibitions. At the exhibitions, people will have the opportunity to study the document as well as an array of accompanying information to explain the Local Plan and what it means. Dates and locations of these exhibitions will be finalised and published soon. To stay up to date with the progress of the Local Plan and the consultation, people can register to receive regular updates via the Vale Community – an email mailing list run by the Vale. Send an email with the subject header of SUBSCRIBE to localplan@whitehorsedc.gov.uk to register. Cllr Mike Murray, cabinet member for Planning Policy, said: “This is an important opportunity for people to have an early look at the Local Plan and make sure we’re heading in the right direction. It’s so important that we get this right from the start, so we want everybody to have their say now. Whether you’re a resident, a district or parish councillor or a housing developer, the Local Plan affects everybody in the Vale, so get involved.”