Planning within the parish of Toft Newton
West Lindsey District Council is the local planning authority, you will need to apply to them to find out if you need planning permission, to gain planning permission, for certificates of lawful development and for planning encorcement isues. Their planning website is accessible here. In some circumstances, you may need to apply to Lincolnshire County Council, you can find further details here.
The Government has recently consulted on developing a Spatial Development Strategy for the whole of Greater Lincolnshire, this would be chaired by the Mayor of Greater Lincolnshire, Dame Andrea Jenkyns and mean that planning policies are more consistent across the area. There are also plans to allow The Rt Hon Steve Reed OBE MP the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government to have a say on more planning applications, the recent consultation can be viewed here.
Public consultation is an important part of the planning process. Members of the public as well as a range of statutory consultees can submit comments on live local, regional and national planning applications. Toft Newton Parish Council is a statutory consultee for planning applications within the parish of Toft Newton.
We include Planning Applications on our meeting agendas, so that Councillors can have their say in our public meetings. We commit to sharing information with residents about planning applciations within the parish that need a response between our meetings.
Toft Newton Parish Council does usually respond to consultations sent to us by West Lindsey Disctrict Council, our responses can be viewed via the Planning Portal, on the individual planning applications, we will also make our future planning responses available via the following webpage.
The basic prinicples that we work to are:
- Toft Newton Parish Council will not object to developments that benefit the parish, provide employment, formal or informal leisure and recreational opportunities or improve individual homes. But we want to ensure that the fantastic natural environment within our parish is protected and where possible enhanced by any such development.
- We ask that developers and planners consider not only standard flooding models, but also take into account the recent history of localised flooding in and around around our parish, and in neighboroughing parishes, the fact that our winters seem to be wetter and longer, and consider the clay-heavy soil that makes natural drainage difficult and slow, and also use internationally renowned flooding models, such as the 2050 flooding map by Central Climate.
- We would be concerned about the loss of natural habitats as a result of non-domestic developments, therefore, we would want to see investment via approved biodivesrsity banks that would provide a biodiversity net gain, and we would prefer that those as close to the parish as possbile are used to improve the quality and availability of suitable wildlife habitats within the region.
If there is a significant planning application that will impact our parish, we may call a public meeting to consult with local residents.
We will also respond to planning applications in neighbouring parishes, despite not being a statutory consultee, if we believe the development will have an impact on the quality of life of our residents. While our consultation response will be considered, it carries no additional weight for an application in a neighbouring parish. For example we submitted a detailed reponse to a planning application in the Faldingworth parish in August 2025, see our Planning Responses webpage to view a copy of the response.
We welcome residents of the parish of Toft Newton to share their thoughts with us about local planning issues or any other parish related issue, via our Contact page.
The Central Lincolnshire Local Plan will be updated shortly, due to changes in Government legislation. You can keep up to date with the update and consultation process here.
The Government is currently updating the Neighbourhood Planning Toolkit, it is expected to publish the new guidance in April 2027, after which time Toft Newton Parish Council will consider developing a Neighbourhood Plan for the parish.
Our former Parish Clerk, Responsible Financial Officer and Proper Officer took part in a consultation and an end-user beta test with The Planning Inspectorate in February 2026, this particular consultation and beta test were looking at new procedures to be followed when taking a rejected planning application to The Planning Inspectorate. Our former Clerk provided lots of useful feedback that will be considered, and used to correct the flaws in the new software that he identified.
Useful websites and documents: