Comments on the scrapped Local Plan 2042 do not carry over. Ashford's scoping consultation closes at 5pm on 23 September, and so does Call for Sites.

If you wrote to Ashford Borough Council last autumn objecting to a site in the draft Local Plan, your comment no longer counts. The plan you commented on has been abandoned, and the council says representations made to it “will not automatically be carried over”.

Landowners who submitted land to the same abandoned plan were treated differently. The council emailed them individually to ask whether they wanted their sites moved across.

The new plan is called the Ashford Local Plan 2043, and the first chance to comment on it closes at 5pm on Wednesday 23 September 2026.

What happened to the Local Plan 2042

The council started work on a Local Plan running to 2042 back in 2023. It ran a Call for Sites, and reached a Regulation 18 public consultation on a draft plan in summer and autumn 2025.

In March 2026 the government brought in a new plan-making system, through the Town and Country Planning (Local Planning) (England) Regulations 2026, which came into force on 25 March. Ashford could not carry on under the old system and has had to start again.

The council’s own summary is unambiguous:

As the Ashford Local Plan 2043 is a ‘new’ Local Plan, comments submitted as part of the draft Local Plan 2042 in summer/autumn 2025 will not automatically be carried over to the new Local Plan process.

It adds that evidence documents and “general themes raised in response to previous plan making stages” may still be used “where appropriate” (Ashford Borough Council: emerging Local Plan).

Sites are handled differently. The Call for Sites page says anyone who submitted land for the 2042 plan “should have been contacted separately to confirm whether you agree to the transfer of the site over to the work on the new Ashford Local Plan 2043”, and that those who replied do not need to resubmit (Ashford Borough Council: Call for Sites).

So a developer’s site can move across on the strength of one email. A resident’s objection to that site cannot.

What the scoping consultation actually asks

This is not a consultation about where houses go. It runs for three weeks, from 9am on Wednesday 2 September to 5pm on Wednesday 23 September, and it asks three things:

  • the main issues facing the borough
  • what the Local Plan should include
  • how you want the council to keep in touch and involve you

Comments arriving after the deadline “will not be considered”. You can respond through the council’s consultation portal, or by emailing a completed form to planning.policy@ashford.gov.uk with the subject heading “Ashford Local Plan 2043 Scoping Consultation”, or by post to the Plan Making and Infrastructure Team, Spatial Planning, Ashford Borough Council, International House, Dover Place, Ashford, TN23 1HU.

The notice is published under Regulation 20 of the 2026 regulations (Ashford Borough Council: notice of scoping consultation).

The scoping document can be read on paper at six places in the borough:

  • Ashford Borough Council, International House, Dover Place, Ashford, TN23 1HU
  • Ashford Gateway, Church Road, Ashford, TN23 1AS
  • Tenterden Town Hall, 24 High Street, Tenterden, TN30 6AN
  • Tenterden Gateway, 2 Manor Row, High Street, Tenterden, TN30 6HP
  • Charing Library, Market Place, Charing, TN27 0LR
  • Wye Library, 6 Upper Bridge Street, Wye, TN25 5AF

Call for Sites is open again, and so is Local Green Space

Running alongside the scoping consultation, on exactly the same dates, is a reopened Call for Sites. Landowners, developers and anyone else can put land forward for housing, employment, tourism, energy generation, community uses, Gypsy and Traveller accommodation, nutrient neutrality mitigation and biodiversity net gain.

To be assessed, a site has to be capable of taking five or more homes, or be 0.25 hectares or more, or offer 500 square metres of floorspace, for economic development.

The part worth knowing if you are not a landowner: the council is also inviting nominations for Local Green Space, using a separate form. That is the designation which gives a valued local green area protection comparable to green belt. It is the one part of this three weeks where a resident can put something on the map rather than object to it later.

The timetable runs to March 2028

The council has published a full timetable, as the 2026 regulations require. It has twelve dated stages, and adoption is pencilled in for 31 March 2028 (Ashford Borough Council: Local Plan timetable).

Timeline of the Ashford Local Plan 2043: notice of intention 30 June 2026; scoping consultation 2 to 23 September 2026; Gateway 1 self assessment 30 October 2026; content and evidence consultation 23 November 2026 to 11 January 2027; Gateway 2 assessor advice February to March 2027; proposed local plan consultation 17 May to 12 July 2027; Gateway 3 assessor advice August to September 2027; submission for examination 1 November 2027; adoption 31 March 2028.

The two consultations that decide where development actually goes come later. The proposed local plan content and evidence consultation runs from 23 November 2026 to 11 January 2027, and the consultation on the proposed plan itself runs from 17 May to 12 July 2027. Both are longer than this one.

New in the 2026 system are three “gateways”, at which independent assessors give the council observations and advice: 30 October 2026 for a self assessment, then February and March 2027, then August and September 2027.

Why any of this matters

Ashford’s adopted plan is the Ashford Local Plan 2030, alongside the Chilmington Green Area Action Plan and nine neighbourhood plans at Aldington and Bonnington, Boughton Aluph and Eastwell, Charing, Egerton, Pluckley, Rolvenden, Tenterden and Wye with Hinxhill (Ashford Borough Council: current Local Plans). That is the document planning officers weigh applications against today, and its horizon is four years away.

The plan that replaces it will set the borough’s housing and employment numbers to 2043 and name the sites that take them. Everything else, including the objections, follows from decisions taken in the next eighteen months.

What it means for you

If you objected to a site in autumn 2025, do not assume anyone still has your letter on the file. Say it again, in this consultation or the next one.

If there is a green space near you that you want kept, the Local Green Space nomination form is open until 23 September and there is a separate form for it. This is the moment.

If you only want to be told when the real consultations open, the response form lets you ask to be notified at every future stage, including the gateways, submission, examination and adoption. Ticking that box is a two-minute job that saves watching the council’s website for the next eighteen months.

If you are not ready to comment yet, the next window is 23 November 2026 to 11 January 2027, and it is a seven-week consultation on the plan’s content and evidence.

We track applications as they are decided on our Ashford planning news page.

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