Key policies and strategies
Housing Strategy
Trafford Housing Strategy 2019-2023 has been developed to identify the key housing priorities for the borough and the measures required to deliver them by the Council and other key public and private stakeholders.
The Strategy identifies 6 housing priorities for the borough:
- To accelerate housing growth
- To support inclusive economic growth
- To create neighbourhoods of choice through a better mix of homes
- To reduce inequalities across the borough
- To improve residents’ health and wellbeing
- To increase the range of, and residents’ access to, opportunities; and to reduce homelessness
Trafford Housing Strategy underpins the Trafford Vision 2031 making sure people are valued, and ‘nobody is held back, and nobody is left behind’. It empowers people to help themselves and to benefit as Trafford grows. It is developed so that those people who choose to live in Trafford, now and in the future, can afford to do so, have choice about where they live and the tenure they choose to live in. It’s about ensuring safe, clean, and sustainable neighbourhoods.
Places for Everyone
The Places for Everyone (PfE) plan of nine Greater Manchester local authorities (Bolton, Bury, Manchester, Oldham, Rochdale, Salford, Tameside, Trafford and Wigan) is a long-term plan for jobs, new homes, and sustainable growth.
Up until December 2020 a joint development plan document of the ten Greater Manchester local authorities was being prepared, Greater Manchester’s Plan for Jobs, Homes & the Environment, known as the GMSF. Following the decision of Stockport Council in December 2020 to withdraw from the GMSF, a new plan has been prepared; the Places for Everyone Plan.
This means that the nine remaining Greater Manchester councils can plan collectively to deal with cross boundary and strategic planning issues until 2037. The GMSF 2020 was a Publication Version plan (Regulation 19) and as PfE has substantially the same effect as GMSF it starts from this stage of the plan making process.
Once adopted, the “Places for Everyone” plan will become part of the statutory development plan for each of the nine Greater Manchester authorities, including Trafford. However, the Plan will not cover everything, and Trafford will still need to produce a Local Plan which will provide further detail to cover local issues and demonstrate how the framework will be delivered on the ground.
Trafford Local Plan
The Trafford Local Plan sets out a vision and framework of policies for the future development of Trafford, addressing needs and opportunities in Trafford and providing a framework to deliver inclusive places, new housing, economic growth, community facilities and infrastructure – as well as a basis for conserving and enhancing the natural and historic environment, mitigating, and adapting to climate change, and achieving well designed places.
The Local Plan will play an important part in the future growth of Trafford. It sets planning policies and allocates sites for development, protection or for other purposes for example, town centre boundaries or green networks. The Local Plan is part of the Statutory Development Plan for Trafford. Once adopted, it will form the basis for making decisions on planning applications.
Trafford Design Guide
We have published a draft Trafford Design Guide for consultation, which will make sure that high-quality design plays a major role in future developments within Trafford.
A design guide is a document which sets out the general design principles and standards that development proposals should follow in the area, building on policies in the development plan.
However, for the Guide to be successful, we really need your views and input. Your feedback will also be used as a visioning exercise for a future Design Code.
Trafford Design Code
A design code is a set of simple, concise, illustrated design requirements that are visual and numerical wherever possible to provide specific, detailed parameters for the physical development of a site or area.
Because they are visual and numerical, rather than detailed policy wording, design codes can provide a more specific steer on what is acceptable, rather than relying on detailed policy wording, as well as being easier to engage with.
They can also give developers greater certainty about what may be acceptable when seeking planning permission and can help lead to faster decisions based on whether a proposal complies with a code, which can help. This in turn helps to speed up the delivery of development.
The content and level of detail in design codes will vary according to the scale at which a code is applied.
Trafford’s Design Code is to be community co-designed and a community consultation strategy is proposed. The first ‘visioning’ stage of this consultation has also begun alongside the consultation on the Trafford Design Guide.
The Design Code Pathfinder Programme expects that consultation on a Design Code will have taken place by March 2023, with the Code adopted in July 2023.