Elmbridge planning: 1 year of housing land, not 5

Elmbridge is in an unusual planning position, and every part of it points the same way. The council can demonstrate one year of housing land where national policy requires five. Its adopted development plan covers the period to 2026 and runs out this year. Its replacement plan was withdrawn from examination in February 2025 after an inspector found it unsound, and the new one will not be adopted before 2028. And the council itself is abolished in April 2027.

If you are wondering why applications you expected to be refused are getting permission, that first number is the reason.

One year of supply, against a five-year requirement

Councils have to identify enough deliverable sites for five years of housing. Elmbridge’s own position statement of December 2025 sets out where it stands, and it does not soften it.

The council’s whole identified pipeline, 1,911 homes, covers roughly one year of what it is required to plan for. Of that, 1,171 homes were already under construction, 457 had planning permission on medium and large sites, 71 on small sites after a 10% discount for permissions that never get built, 129 came from the land availability assessment and brownfield register, and 83 from expected windfall.

Two policy mechanisms follow from this, and both work against the council in appeals.

The 20% buffer in the table is a penalty. The 2023 Housing Delivery Test, published in December 2024, measured Elmbridge as having delivered 79% of its housing requirement over three years. Anything below 85% adds a fifth to the requirement, which is where the extra 1,584 homes come from.

More importantly, where a council cannot show five years of supply, national policy applies what planners call the tilted balance: permission for housing should be granted unless the harm significantly and demonstrably outweighs the benefits. In a borough that is largely green belt, that is the argument developers now lead with, and it is why the supply figure is the single most consequential number in Elmbridge planning.

The plan that is running out

The adopted development plan is the Elmbridge Core Strategy of July 2011 and the Development Management Plan of April 2015. Together they set the housing target and the detailed policies applications are judged against, and the council states plainly that they cover the period from 2011 to 2026. That period ends this year, and the council’s own 5-year statement records that the housing requirement in Core Strategy Policy CS2 “is recognised to be out-of-date”, which is why the standard method figure of 1,584 a year is used instead.

Two county-level documents also form part of the plan: the Surrey Minerals Plan (2011) and the Surrey Waste Local Plan 2019 to 2033. So does one surviving regional policy, NRM6 of the South East Plan, which requires mitigation for new homes near the Thames Basin Heaths Special Protection Area. That policy is the reason housing schemes in the south of the borough carry a payment towards alternative recreational space.

Why the replacement plan was withdrawn

The Draft Elmbridge Local Plan 2037 was submitted for examination in August 2023. At the close of stage 2 of the hearings the inspector issued interim findings that the plan was unsound as submitted, and told the council it could either withdraw it or have the inspector write up a full report finding it unsound.

Full Council voted to withdraw it on 26 February 2025.

The council’s Local Development Scheme is candid about why it did not simply rework it. The December 2024 revision of the National Planning Policy Framework brought in a new standard method that took Elmbridge’s local housing need to 1,584 homes a year, far above what the withdrawn plan proposed, and the transitional arrangements gave councils in that position until December 2026 to submit a reworked plan. The council concluded there was not enough time, and decided to start again under the new plan-making system instead. The new plan is being developed from scratch.

The timetable for the new Local Plan

The Local Development Scheme published in March 2025 covers 2025 to 2028 and sets out a single Local Plan running to 2043/44. These are its stages.

The date to put in your diary is November and December 2026. That eight-week Regulation 18 consultation is the first stage at which there is a draft plan with a strategy in it to argue about, and it is far more consequential than the technical scoping stage that preceded it. The council’s own risk register for the project lists failure to meet milestones, national policy changing again, and the new plan being found unsound.

The scheme also notes that its own timings are provisional, because it was written on the council’s understanding of reforms that had not yet come into force.

The council that decides this disappears in April 2027

Surrey’s district and borough councils are being replaced by unitary authorities. Elmbridge is going into a New East Surrey Council, which takes over delivering local services from April 2027. An East Surrey Shadow Authority already exists, led by Councillor Steve Wotton, and residents were asked over the summer of 2026 to help shape the new council’s brand identity.

That matters for planning in a practical way. A Local Plan that will not be submitted for examination until 2028 will be finished by a council that does not yet exist, for an area larger than Elmbridge, and the plan-making duties will transfer with it.

What changes on 31 October 2026

Separately from all of the above, the government is bringing in mandatory national rules on 31 October 2026 setting out which planning applications must be decided by officers and which may go to a planning committee. Councillors considered a report on it at Elmbridge’s 22 July 2026 meeting.

The council’s position is that this changes less than people fear, and it makes a fair point: officers at Elmbridge already determine 96% of applications. Residents will still be able to comment, those comments still have to be taken into account, and complex or sensitive applications can still go to committee. What changes is that the council will no longer decide its own rules on which ones do.

Two live cases worth following

Mill Road depot, Esher. The council’s own waste depot. An application to change some of its planning conditions, mainly on operating hours and access, was withdrawn in 2025 (reference 2025/3216) after objections, and resubmitted in June 2026 as 2026/1278. In July the council said the application needs more technical information and will now go to a planning meeting later in the year, with a fresh round of notification letters and consultation when that information arrives. The application stays open for comment. School-time restrictions on Douglas Road and The Woodlands would be kept, and the council is separately spending £100,000 on road improvements around the depot with Surrey Highways.

Oaken Lane, Claygate. Elmbridge Eagles Rugby Club’s ground has been unusable because roughly 52,000 tonnes of soil were tipped there, far more than the 2016 permission to upgrade the pitches allowed, and in breach of Environment Agency permission and of the freeholder consent from the council. The clubhouse has fallen into disrepair. The council has served a forfeiture notice on the tenants giving them around twelve months to put things right. It says it will still support the club, including with funding applications, but will not spend significantly on a problem it did not cause.

How to follow individual applications

Elmbridge publishes its planning register and takes comments online, and you can sign up for planning alerts for your area through the council. The council encourages this specifically because the committee rules change in October.

The evidence base for the withdrawn 2037 plan is still published on the council’s Local Plan examination pages, including the submission documents, the Regulation 20 representations and the inspector’s correspondence. Much of that evidence, on flooding, green belt and land availability, will be reused for the new plan, so it is worth reading if a site near you was in it.

Sources

• Elmbridge Borough Council, 5 Year Housing Land Supply position statement, December 2025 for the 1,584 local housing need, the 20% buffer, the 9,504 requirement, the 1,911 supply and the one-year position.
• Elmbridge Borough Council, land supply confirming the December 2025 statement is the current published position.
• Elmbridge New Local Plan Local Development Scheme 2025 to 2028, 6 March 2025, for the withdrawal, the inspector’s interim findings, the timetable and the plan period to 2043/44.
• Elmbridge Borough Council, New Local Plan and Local Plan examination for the 26 February 2025 withdrawal decision.
• Elmbridge Borough Council, current adopted development plan for the Core Strategy and Development Management Plan and the 2011 to 2026 plan period.
• Elmbridge Borough Council, changes to planning decisions, 14 July 2026, for the 31 October 2026 national rules and the 96% figure.
• Elmbridge Borough Council, New East Surrey Council brand, 7 July 2026, for the April 2027 handover and the shadow authority.
• Elmbridge Borough Council, planning application Mill Road depot, 3 July 2026, and Elmbridge Eagles Rugby site, Oaken Lane, Claygate, 2 July 2026.

Housing land supply is recalculated at least annually and the figures above have a base date of 31 March 2025. Timetables in a Local Development Scheme slip routinely. Checked on 10 August 2026.

More Elmbridge local information: house prices, trains to London, roadworks and travel and things to do in Elmbridge.