Residents and other interested parties are being asked to consider an alternative site for development as part of the preparatory works in putting together the city’s next Local Plan for 2025 to 2044.
Cabinet gave approval on Tuesday (20 January 2026) for the Peterborough Local Plan – Alternative Site Option document to go out to public consultation for six weeks from 23 January 2026 until 5 March 2026.
The Draft Local Plan (April 2025) includes emerging planning policies and proposals for development. It also sets out where the proposed housing and employment sites are.
This new consultation is asking only for comments and feedback on an alternative site on land to the west of Wittering. To meet the government’s mandatory housing target, to build around 20,000 extra dwellings, there is a need for urban extensions/new settlements.
Councillor Mohammed Farooq, Cabinet Member for Growth and Regeneration, said:
“Following significant feedback received in last spring’s consultation into the Full Draft Local Plan, the council has identified this alternative site for consideration on land to the west of Wittering.
“This alternative site is considered to have capacity for approximately 3,000 dwellings with the possibility of delivering 1,800 homes in the plan-period (the same as Land northeast of Castor and Ailsworth). No other singular site, or combination of sites have been suggested to the council that can deliver the level of housing required. Therefore, this is the only alternative and available site for consideration.
“For this consultation we are only inviting comments on the site on land to the west of Wittering. All responses will be considered alongside the earlier consultation responses to enable us to put together a final version that will go out for consultation in the summer.
“To be clear, this consultation exercise does not mean the council has made a decision to include the site on land to the west of Wittering in the submission version of the Local Plan or not, nor has any decision been made about the inclusion of other sites in the submission version of the Plan. The feedback from this focused consultation will help inform the Council on which site would be most suitable for inclusion in the final version of the Local Plan.”
Once the consultation is complete, all comments received will be reviewed and any necessary changes to the Local Plan will be made and will go to Full Council for approval.
The submission version of the Local Plan will go out for final consultation in the summer and then submitted to Government in December 2026. The new Local Plan will eventually replace the adopted Peterborough Local Plan (July 2019).