Neighbourhood planning advice

Minerals extraction and waste management development are outside the scope of neighbourhood plans, but the safeguarding of mineral resources can be relevant to them.

This is in cases where the plan proposes to allocate specific sites of more than one hectare for non-mineral development (such as housing or employment).

As the Minerals and Waste planning authority, we define Mineral Safeguarding Areas within Norfolk. These are areas where mineral resources occur which may be of local, or greater than local, importance.

In Norfolk the Mineral Safeguarding Areas are for:

• Sand and gravel
• Carstone
• Silica sand

Mineral resources are finite and we can only extract them where they occur. We should avoid non-mineral development on these sites.

If you intend to allocate a specific site of more than one hectare for non-mineral development, you'll need to find out if it's underlain by a Mineral Safeguarding Area.

If it is, the site allocation policy in the Neighbourhood Plan will need to include at least a mineral investigation and assessment at the planning application stage.

Prior extraction and/or reuse of mineral within the construction phases may be potential outcomes.

The Norfolk Minerals and Waste Core Strategy DPD (PDF) [2MB] contains the Norfolk Mineral Safeguarding Policy (Policy CS16). A list of exemptions to the mineral safeguarding policy is in Appendix C of the same document.

You may also find the following information useful:

• The Minerals and Waste Local Plan review
• An interactive map of Mineral Safeguarding Areas
• Guidance on mineral resource safeguarding: sand, gravel and carstone (PDF) [118KB]
• Guidance on mineral resource safeguarding: silica sand (PDF) [113KB]

For further information contact the Minerals and Waste Planning Policy team at: LDF@norfolk.gov.uk