Planning Services
Unitary Development Plan
Unitary Development Plan Saved Policies
In 2004 the Planning and Compulsory Purchase Act introduced significant changes to the planning system. This provided details for replacing the Unitary Development Plan with the Local Development Framework.
The Act states that policies in existing Unitary Development Plans should normally expire 3 years from the date of commencement of the Act.
This period came to an end in September 2007 and as we are currently finalising the Local Development Framework, the Government has allowed the extension to the life of some policies within the Unitary Development Plan beyond September 2007.
The Council, in consultation with the Government has set out those Unitary Development Plan Saved Policies which will be used to guide planning decisions until its replacement by policies in the Local Development Framework.
The following are letters from the Government in support of this:
Government Office for London - Tuesday 18 September 2007 
PDF 182K
Government Office for London - Wednesday 26 September 2007 PDF 49K
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What is the purpose of the Unitary Development Plan?
The Unitary Development Plan is the borough wide statutory development plan for Barking and Dagenham. This means it is a legally adopted document and has undergone consultation with the public.
The Unitary Development Plan's main tasks include:
- Providing guidance to help people plan the use of their land sensibly
- Regulating the development and use of land in the public interest
- Allocating enough land for necessary development, in locations which do not compromise the ability of future generations to meet their needs
- Ensuring that public opinions are reflected in our policies relating to all development proposals and planning issues
The Unitary Development Plan is also about protecting areas of environmental and cultural importance. For example, the Unitary Development Plan helps protect parks and other open space from development and designates certain parts of the borough as Green Belt.
The Unitary Development Plan consists of policies and proposals, these policies are spread across 10 chapters which reflects the range of land uses in the borough such as housing, industry, shopping, open spaces, transport, and community facilities. For example, policy G3 protects the Green Belt from inappropriate development and Policy S1 sets out where large new retail developments should be built.
There are also policies which seek to make sure that new development is designed to an acceptable standard and that listed buildings are protected.
The Unitary Development Plan also includes a Proposals Map, and the Barking Town Centre and Roding Valley Area Insert Map. Together these maps show all the different land uses in the borough and set out acceptable land uses for different locations in the borough.
Supporting the policies and proposals in the Unitary Development Plan, are written statements. These written statements help justify why the policies and proposals have been adopted.
Our Development Control officer's assess planning applications and recommend whether or not a planning application should be approved. All planning applications are judged against the relevant policies and proposals in the Unitary Development Plan, unless other important considerations indicate otherwise.
The Unitary Development Plan includes information from many sources. It was developed using the contemporary planning guidance from government, considering the views of local people and balancing the comments from a wide range of public and private organisations with an interest in the plan.
Our current Unitary Development Plan can be viewed on the Planning Portal website (Please note: This is an external website), the Government's online planning resource.
The Unitary Development Plan will continue to act as the adopted borough wide statutory development plan for Barking and Dagenham, until it is replaced by a new style development plan known as a Local Development Framework.
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We, in our role as Waste Planning Authority, are required under the Town and Country Planning Act 1990 to prepare a 'Waste Local Plan'.
