Sefton's new Local Plan decides where homes go up to 2044, and the first comment window shuts at midnight on 18 September 2026. What it covers and how to reply.
The biggest planning decision facing Southport is not a single application. It is the new Sefton Local Plan, the document that will decide how many homes the borough has to find room for, and where they go, between 2029 and 2044. Work on it started this summer, and the first chance to comment closes at midnight on Friday 18 September 2026.
That is a genuinely early stage, which is the point. At this stage the council is asking what the plan should cover, not defending a map of building sites. The sites come later, and they will be judged against whatever this plan ends up saying.
What is happening now
Sefton Council has published a Local Plan Scoping Report and opened a consultation on it running Monday 20 July to Friday 18 September 2026, with comments accepted until midnight on 18 September (Sefton Council).
Running alongside it, with the same deadline, is a Call for Sites: the process by which landowners and developers put forward land they would like to see allocated for development. Every site that ends up in the plan will have come from this stage, and none of them are invented by the council.
The new plan will cover the whole of the Metropolitan Borough of Sefton and the period 2029 to 2044 (Sefton Council Local Plan Timetable, 24 April 2026).
The housing number has not been set yet
This is the single most important thing to understand about the current stage, and the thing most likely to be reported wrongly.
The scoping report does not contain a housing target. What it says is that the plan must “identify the overall number of new homes we require over the plan period”, and it lists the questions the council still has to answer, including “whether our neighbours (e.g. Liverpool) can meet some of Sefton’s housing needs” and “whether we need to allocate land in the Green Belt to meet some of Sefton’s future housing growth” (Sefton Local Plan Scoping Report, July 2026).
On Green Belt the report commits only to “review Green Belt boundaries only if necessary and supported by evidence”, and to respond to the Government’s new Green Belt policies. Anyone telling you a number of homes for a specific field in Southport or Formby today is guessing.
What it means for you. If you have a view on whether the borough’s growth should go on brownfield land, in town centres, or on the edge of the built-up area, this is the stage to say it, before the evidence base is commissioned and the arithmetic hardens.
What the current plan says, and how it has performed
Sefton’s existing Local Plan was adopted in April 2017 and runs to 2030. Its housing requirement is 11,520 homes over the plan period, which the plan itself describes as “an average of 640 dwellings a year between 2012 and 2030”. That requirement is staged: 500 a year from 2012 to 2017, then 694 a year from 2017 to 2030 (A Local Plan for Sefton, adopted April 2017, paragraph 6.14).
Delivery has broadly tracked it since the plan was adopted. The council’s own monitoring shows net additional dwellings running at 668 in 2016/17, 515, 583, 779, 735, 764 and 705 in 2022/23, against negative or low numbers in the years before the plan, when demolitions outweighed new build (Sefton Authority Monitoring Report).
That record is the backdrop to the new plan. A borough that has been delivering around 700 homes a year is about to be asked what number it can commit to for 2029 to 2044, and the Government’s plan-making reforms mean it cannot simply decline to produce one: the timetable above is the council’s own published schedule under the new statutory process.
Where the pressure is
Sefton’s shape makes this harder than it is for most boroughs. The borough runs in a thin strip down the coast, with a nationally and internationally protected dune coastline on one side, Green Belt inland, and a built-up southern half facing Liverpool that has limited room left. The scoping report’s own list of issues names the capacity of existing towns and villages, the role of small sites, brownfield land, conversions and infill, and only then the Green Belt question.
It also puts the coast squarely in the plan’s remit, committing the plan to “plan to manage recreational pressure on Sefton’s internationally protected coast” and to treat nature as critical infrastructure. In practice that means the beaches and dunes at Formby, Ainsdale and Crosby are part of the housing conversation, not separate from it.
How to comment
Comments must arrive by midnight on Friday 18 September 2026 (Sefton Council). There are three routes:
- Online through the Your Sefton Your Say consultation hub.
- By email to local.plan@sefton.gov.uk.
- By post to the Planning Department, Magdalen House, Trinity Road, Bootle, L20 3NJ.
The scoping report is available in full online, along with an easy-read version and a leaflet, and paper copies are in every Sefton library. The council is also asking a second question worth answering: how you would prefer to be consulted in future stages, which is the sort of thing that gets ignored and then complained about later.
The next opportunity after this one is not until autumn 2027, when the council consults on plan content and evidence, so a gap of a year follows this deadline.
Individual planning applications
Day to day applications carry on regardless of the Local Plan. Sefton runs a public access planning register where you can search applications, view the documents and comment on anything near you. Where a new development affects traffic or access, it will often turn up first in the borough’s highway schemes, and where it affects supply, it will show up eventually in what homes actually sell for.
Frequently asked questions
When does the Sefton Local Plan consultation close?
Midnight on Friday 18 September 2026. The consultation opened on 20 July 2026 and covers the Local Plan Scoping Report and the Call for Sites.
What period will the new Sefton Local Plan cover?
2029 to 2044. It is due to be submitted to the Secretary of State in December 2028 and adopted in April 2029.
How many new homes will Southport have to take?
Not decided. The scoping report does not contain a housing number. Setting the overall figure is one of the things the plan has to do, and the evidence for it comes later in the process.
Will Sefton build on the Green Belt?
The council’s stated position is that it will review Green Belt boundaries “only if necessary and supported by evidence”. It has also listed, as an open question, whether Green Belt land will be needed to meet future housing growth. Neither is a commitment either way.
What does the current Sefton Local Plan require?
11,520 homes between 2012 and 2030, an average of 640 a year, staged at 500 a year to 2017 and 694 a year after that. It was adopted in April 2017.
How do I comment on the Local Plan?
Online through Your Sefton Your Say, by email to local.plan@sefton.gov.uk, or by post to the Planning Department, Magdalen House, Trinity Road, Bootle, L20 3NJ, by midnight on 18 September 2026.
Sources
- Sefton Council: the new Local Plan for the consultation dates, the deadline, the Call for Sites and how to comment.
- Sefton Local Plan Timetable, version 1, 24 April 2026 for every stage date, the Gateway checkpoints, submission and adoption.
- Sefton Local Plan Scoping Report, July 2026 for what the plan must do on housing, Green Belt and the coast.
- A Local Plan for Sefton, adopted April 2017 for the 11,520 home requirement and the 640 a year average, at paragraph 6.14.
- Sefton Authority Monitoring Report for the net additional dwellings delivered each year and the April 2017 adoption date.
Local Plan timetables slip. Check the council’s own Local Plan page for the current position before relying on a date here.
Have your say
We read every message. To comment on this story, email the newsdesk and we may publish a selection of responses: hello@southporttoday.co.uk.