Wycombe planning: 2,761 homes, comments close 6 Sept

Buckinghamshire Council’s draft Local Plan for 2045 is open for comment until 11.59pm on Sunday 6 September 2026. This is the last stage at which the public can say anything before a government inspector takes over, and it is the plan that will decide where development goes here until 2045.

For the Wycombe area it names nine sites in and around High Wycombe totalling 2,761 homes, an urban extension of 2,895 homes at Princes Risborough, 470 homes at Hollands Farm in Bourne End and, at Little Marlow, the film studios the council itself fought and lost. Every figure below comes from the plan document.

What is being consulted on, and by when

This is a Regulation 19 consultation, the final one. Unlike earlier rounds it is not asking whether you like the plan. It asks whether the plan is legally compliant and sound, and the responses go to the planning inspector rather than to councillors.

• Opened: Thursday 23 July 2026
• Closes: 11.59pm, Sunday 6 September 2026
• How to comment: register on the council’s consultation portal at buckinghamshire.oc2.uk
• Paper copies: the council’s principal office at Queen Victoria Road, High Wycombe HP11 1BB, and at Marlow and Princes Risborough libraries
• Next: submission to the Secretary of State for examination, which the government has directed must happen by 31 December 2026

That deadline is not the council’s own choice. On 13 February 2026 the government required Buckinghamshire to publish a revised timetable with fixed dates for this consultation and for submission, after the plan slipped. The council has been working to those dates since.

The numbers behind the plan

The government’s standard method puts Buckinghamshire’s housing need at 4,344 homes a year, or 91,230 over the 21-year plan period from 2024 to 2045. That is a 38% increase on the county’s 2024 housing stock. About 21,500 homes are already committed through existing plans and permissions, so the plan has to find sites for roughly 70,000 more. It makes provision for 91,287 in total.

The requirement is stepped, which is the detail most likely to be argued over at examination: 2,150 homes a year to 2029/30, then 5,222 a year for the fifteen years after that. Almost two and a half times as much building is loaded into the second half of the plan as the first.

Two strategic choices shape where it goes. No housing or employment land is allocated in the Green Belt. And brownfield sites come first: 107 brownfield allocations across the county deliver 7,599 homes, with town centres and places near railway stations treated as the priority. Alongside the housing, the plan identifies more than 500 infrastructure projects costing at least £6 billion.

The nine High Wycombe sites

A tenth site, HIW10 at the High Wycombe Central Business Centre, is allocated for employment rather than housing: 0.42 hectares and about 4,500 square metres of floorspace.

What stands out on that list

More than half the High Wycombe total is town-centre redevelopment. HIW03, HIW04, HIW05, HIW06 and HIW08 come to 1,255 homes between them, and every one of them is a car park, a shop or an office block being turned into flats. Policy SP8 of the plan makes that explicit: it treats High Wycombe as a “competitive regional centre” and directs housing-led regeneration into it.

That has already begun on the ground. The Easton Street multi-storey car park is now permanently closed, with the council pointing drivers to Wycombe Swan and Railway Place instead. It is site HIW04. And the council’s own offices on Queen Victoria Road are allocated for 150 key-worker homes because the council is moving: the refurbished Tesco on Denmark Street opened on 19 February 2026, and the new council offices and county archives are due to open above it in spring 2027, part of a programme the council puts at more than £15 million.

Whether any of it shifts prices is another matter. Only 26 of the 1,583 homes sold locally in the year to June 2026 were new builds, so the pipeline has barely touched the market so far: see High Wycombe house prices.

The greenfield exceptions are at the edges. Gomm Valley and Ashwells at 646 homes is the largest single Wycombe allocation, and the plan sets a condition on it that tells you what the argument will be about: development must “establish an appropriate urban edge to High Wycombe and Tylers Green and avoid the coalescence” of the two. The same worry attaches to Terriers Farm, 24 hectares on the northern edge, and to Tralee Farm on Amersham Road.

Princes Risborough: 2,895 homes and a relief road

The bigger change is over the ridge. Princes Risborough is one of ten “new and expanded settlement” sites chosen for strategic growth across the county, and its allocation is 177.2 hectares for up to 2,895 homes within the plan period. That is more homes than the nine High Wycombe sites put together, dropped onto a small market town, and the plan treats it as a new piece of settlement rather than an edge-of-town estate.

It comes with the Princes Risborough Relief Road, a complete alternative route to the A4010 running between the Shootacre Lane and Grove Lane junctions, which the development itself has to deliver. Also included: a local centre of 300 to 400 square metres of retail and around 500 square metres of business space, school places, green corridors along the Crowbrook, and 11 additional serviced Gypsy and Traveller pitches.

A separate allocation, PRI01 at Princes Risborough station, adds 80 homes with convenience retail and bus improvements. Two employment allocations sit alongside: the Princes Estate expansion and roughly 12 hectares north of Lower Icknield Way.

Marlow, Bourne End and the film studios

Marlow gets no housing allocation at all. Its entry in the plan is MAR01, Marlow Film Studios at Little Marlow, allocated for a film, high-end television and media production complex on former quarry and landfill land beside the A404.

That allocation follows a defeat for the council. Buckinghamshire refused the scheme in 2024; the developer appealed; and after a public inquiry the Secretary of State granted permission, finding “very special circumstances” and concluding that the benefits clearly outweighed the harm to the Green Belt. The council, Beaconsfield’s MP and the Save Marlow’s Green Belt campaign all objected. The plan now has to accommodate what the appeal decided, and the allocation carries conditions on Green Belt openness, the Chilterns National Landscape setting, Westhorpe interchange improvements and a new pedestrian and cycle bridge over the A404.

Bourne End takes 470 homes at Hollands Farm with a one-form-entry primary school, a spine road to Millboard Road and Hedsor Road, and a requirement to keep a sense of separation from Harvest Hill.

How to have your say, and what happens next

Comments have to be in by 11.59pm on Sunday 6 September 2026 through the council’s consultation portal. Representations at this stage should address whether the plan is sound and legally compliant, since that is what the inspector will examine. After that the plan is submitted, and the government’s direction requires that to happen by 31 December 2026.

If you want to check a specific application rather than the plan, the council’s planning register covers the whole county. Bear in mind when you search it that Buckinghamshire is a single unitary of more than half a million people, so a weekly list will mix Lane End and Marlow in with Buckingham and Milton Keynes.

Frequently asked questions

When does the Buckinghamshire Local Plan consultation close?

11.59pm on Sunday 6 September 2026. It opened on 23 July 2026 and is the final public consultation before the plan goes to a government inspector.

How many homes are planned for High Wycombe?

2,761 across nine allocated sites, from 646 at Gomm Valley and Ashwells down to 100 at Abbey Barn North. A further 1,255 of that total sits on town-centre sites being redeveloped from car parks, shops and offices.

How many homes does Buckinghamshire have to build?

91,230 by 2045, or 4,344 a year, set by the government’s standard method. The draft plan makes provision for 91,287. That is a 38% increase on the county’s 2024 housing stock.

Is Green Belt land being allocated?

No. The plan allocates no housing or employment land in the Green Belt, and instead prioritises brownfield sites, town centres and locations near railway stations. The Marlow Film Studios site is in the Green Belt but was permitted on appeal by the Secretary of State rather than allocated first.

What is happening at Princes Risborough?

An urban extension of up to 2,895 homes on 177.2 hectares, plus 80 homes at the station. The development must deliver the Princes Risborough Relief Road, a new local centre and school provision.

Why is there no Wycombe District Council any more?

The four district councils and the county council were replaced by a single Buckinghamshire Council in 2020. Planning, bins, roads and licensing for High Wycombe, Marlow and Princes Risborough are all decided by that one authority, alongside Aylesbury and Buckingham.

Sources

• Draft Local Plan for Buckinghamshire, Regulation 19, July 2026 (PDF, 450pp) for every allocation, the housing requirement, the stepped trajectory and policy SP8.
• Regulation 19 consultation page, Buckinghamshire Council for the dates, the portal and where paper copies can be seen.
• Council launches final consultation on draft Local Plan, 22 July 2026 for the 91,000-home figure and the infrastructure programme.
• Key milestone reached in the regeneration of High Wycombe town centre, 19 February 2026 for the Denmark Street scheme and the 2027 office move.
• Film studio on green belt land approved on appeal, BBC News for the Marlow Film Studios appeal decision.
• Buckinghamshire Council planning register for individual applications.

Figures are taken from the draft plan as published for consultation on 23 July 2026. Allocations can change at examination.