What is a masterplan?
Masterplans are strategic documents that are usually prepared ahead of a site or area undergoing regeneration or significant change. They help guide future development by explaining how different parts of the site or area will be used (e.g. new housing, shops, roads and green spaces), what it will look like, and when development is likely to take place.
Masterplans can support successful placemaking by contributing to good quality design of the public realm and by creating places that work well for the people who live, work and spend time in them.
Masterplans can be commissioned or produced by a local planning authority or by a developer working closely with the local community. They can be used to plan a large site or area in single or multiple ownership, ensuring new development comes forward in a coherent and integrated way. For example, joining up smaller or adjacent sites with highways infrastructure (e.g. paths, cycle routes and roads) or helping to deliver bigger infrastructure like health centres, sports pitches and play areas.
When used for regeneration, masterplans can identify early on where new development and supporting infrastructure will go and provide a vision for how local needs will be addressed in the longer term.
More specific guidelines on a site’s development may be set out in a design code, which can accompany a masterplan. Other technical reports may also be prepared alongside a masterplan (e.g. transport, landscape or ecological assessments).
How does a masterplan fit in with a Local Plan?
Masterplans support the implementation of local planning policy by providing additional detail or guidance on how a specific policy or site allocation in the Local Plan will be delivered. In other words, the Local Plan will set out ‘what’ and ‘where’ whilst the masterplan describes ‘how’.
Masterplans are typically more aspirational than Local Plans and can be used to drive regeneration, attract investment or shape future planning policy. They do not usually form part of the Local Plan but can be a material consideration when determining planning applications.
Masterplans may be adopted as a supplementary planning document or a technical advice note to give them more weight in decision making or, occasionally, they may be used to inform or evolve into an area action plan (AAP), subject to a formal adoption process.