Windsor planning: new Local Plan open to comment to 13 Sept

The Royal Borough of Windsor and Maidenhead is writing a new Local Plan, and the first chance to influence it closes at 23.59 on Sunday 13 September 2026. Two things are open at once: a Scoping Consultation, which asks what the plan should cover and how the council should talk to people while it writes it, and a Call for Sites, which asks residents, landowners and developers to nominate land for development. Both started on Thursday 30 July 2026.

This is the earliest and least crowded stage of a plan that will decide where houses, employment space and infrastructure go across Windsor, Maidenhead, Ascot, Eton, Datchet, Cookham, Bray, Old Windsor and the villages until roughly 2045. By the time it reaches a draft with sites drawn on a map, the argument is largely over.

What the council is actually asking

The Scoping Consultation is deliberately open. In the council’s own words, it is at “the very beginning of preparing the new local plan” and wants to know two things: what matters the plan should address, and how it should engage with people while preparing it. There is a questionnaire on the council’s consultation platform, and you can write instead to planning.consultation@rbwm.gov.uk or to the Planning Policy Team at the Town Hall, St Ives Road, Maidenhead SL6 1RF.

The Call for Sites is the part with teeth. It is not only for housing. The council says it wants suggestions for “housing and economic development, but also sites for other uses such as for community uses, renewable energy provision and biodiversity improvements”. Anything put forward now enters the evidence base the plan is later tested against. The deadline is the same, 23.59 on Sunday 13 September 2026.

The timetable, in full

The government has replaced the old Local Development Scheme with a published timetable that councils must keep under review. The Royal Borough’s took effect on Wednesday 24 June 2026 and runs like this.

Two details in that timetable matter more than they look. The council gave formal Notice of Intention to Commence on Wednesday 24 June 2026, naming the plan area as the whole borough, ONS code E06000040. And the formal 30-month plan preparation period is expected to start on Thursday 29 October 2026, when the council expects to clear Gateway 1. The clock the government cares about has not started yet.

The new plan will not cover minerals and waste, which stay in the separate Central and Eastern Berkshire Joint Minerals and Waste Plan. The council also intends to review its Community Infrastructure Levy charging schedule in parallel, and to consult on a revised schedule at the same time as the Proposed Local Plan in summer 2028.

Why the council is doing this now

The honest answer is in the council’s own monitoring pages, and it is about housing land supply.

The Royal Borough’s published position is that it has a 4.04 year supply of deliverable housing land against a five-year requirement of 5,947 dwellings for 2024/25 to 2028/29, which is 1,189 homes a year with a 5 per cent buffer.

From Wednesday 1 July 2026, paragraph 78(c) of the National Planning Policy Framework applies a 20 per cent buffer to councils whose adopted annual housing requirement is 80 per cent or less of the current standard method figure. The council states plainly that its Borough Local Plan requirement “is less than 80 per cent of the most up to date local housing need figure for the Borough”, so the larger buffer applies to it.

The arithmetic that follows is unforgiving. The five-year requirement rises from 5,947 dwellings to 6,797, or 1,360 a year, and the supply the council can demonstrate falls from 4.04 years to 3.53 years.

A council that cannot show five years of supply loses much of its ability to refuse housing on policy grounds, because the presumption in favour of sustainable development tilts decisions towards approval. That is why appeals get harder to win, and why a new plan with a defensible supply is worth three years of work.

One number does run the council’s way. The most recent Housing Delivery Test measurement published by the government is the 2023 measurement, and the Royal Borough scored 95 per cent. No sanction applies at that score.

What is still in force until 2029

Until the new plan is adopted, applications are still decided against the Borough Local Plan 2013 to 2033. The inspector’s final report arrived on 26 January 2022 and found the plan sound subject to main modifications, and the council voted to adopt it at an Extraordinary Council meeting on Tuesday 8 February 2022. It superseded the saved policies of the 1999 Local Plan and the Maidenhead Town Centre Area Action Plan.

That plan carries full weight, alongside the adopted neighbourhood plans and the minerals and waste plan. If you are looking up what policy applies to a specific field or street, the council publishes four policies maps, split as Maidenhead and Cookham, Holyport and The Walthams, Windsor, Old Windsor and Datchet, and Ascot, Sunningdale and Sunninghill, plus an interactive version.

Frequently asked questions

When does the Windsor and Maidenhead Local Plan consultation close?

23.59 on Sunday 13 September 2026, for both the Scoping Consultation and the Call for Sites. It opened on 30 July 2026.

When will the new Local Plan be adopted?

The published timetable gives 29 April 2029, after submission for examination on 30 November 2028. Timetables slip, and the council says it will republish this one if it changes.

How many homes a year does the Royal Borough have to find?

For five-year supply purposes the requirement is 1,360 homes a year once the 20 per cent buffer is applied, up from 1,189 with a 5 per cent buffer. The figure the new plan itself will have to meet is set later in the process.

Can I put forward a field or a site?

Yes. The Call for Sites is open to anyone, not only landowners and developers, and it covers community, renewable energy and biodiversity uses as well as housing and employment. Submit through the council’s consultation platform by 13 September 2026.

Which plan is my planning application decided against right now?

The Borough Local Plan 2013 to 2033, adopted 8 February 2022, together with any made neighbourhood plan for your parish. The new plan changes nothing until it is adopted.

Where do I look up a live application?

On the council’s own Public Access register at publicaccess.rbwm.gov.uk, which publishes the weekly list of validated applications for the whole borough.

Sources

• New Local Plan: Scoping Consultation and Call for Sites, Royal Borough of Windsor and Maidenhead.
• New Local Plan Timetable, in force from 24 June 2026.
• Notice of Intention to Commence, 24 June 2026.
• Monitoring: five year housing land supply and Housing Delivery Test, Royal Borough of Windsor and Maidenhead.
• Adopted local plan: Borough Local Plan 2013 to 2033, adopted 8 February 2022.
• Approval to commence the New Local Plan Scoping Stage Consultation, officer decision published 29 July 2026.

Dates and figures were checked against the council’s own pages on 10 August 2026. Consultation deadlines occasionally move, so confirm on the council’s page before you rely on one.

What the plan decides eventually shows up in the price of a house here. Windsor house prices has the current borough average and the median sale in every postcode sector.