Development standards

The Development Standards Supplementary Planning Document (SPD) was adopted by the Authority on 27 September 2012. As an SPD, it conforms with and supplements policies within our adopted development plan. It is a material consideration in the determination of planning applications and applies throughout the whole of the National Park.

The SPD sets out more detail on the requirements for open space provision and provides additional guidance on our affordable housing requirements and the consideration of development close to the protected New Forest habitats.

As required by the relevant Planning Regulations, this is accompanied by an adoption statement and consultation statement.

Complying with the Habitats Regulations and Local Plan Policies

We have prepared an updated package of mitigation measures in our Revised Habitat Mitigation Scheme SPD to mitigate the recreational impacts of new development on the New Forest Special Protection Area (SPA) and Special Area of Conservation (SAC). These measures will be used for all applications that need to secure mitigation. The SPD (2020) revises our previous mitigation scheme (2012) and details can be found on our web page: Development Impacts on Protected Areas.

Solent Special Protection Areas

As well as the requirements for developers as outlined above, we will also require developers to mitigate against recreational pressure from new development on the Solent Special Protection Area, an area of the Solent coastline protected internationally as a nature conservation site. Further details can be found on the Bird Aware Solent website.

How this scheme applies in the New Forest National Park is explained in the Explanatory Note (see link below).