In preparing the Preferred Development Option Document, we have area profiles for the different parts of the main urban areas of Warrington (central, north, south, east and west) and for each of the outlying settlements.

These profiles provide a detailed assessment of the capacity of local schools, health facilities, open space, leisure facilities, community facilities and the transport network.

The area profiles have been important in helping us to consider options for where development could go. We've prepared a note which explains how we have carried out our options assessment process.

We've looked at the number of homes that Warrington needs to provide over the next 20 years and provided a response to comments on housing needs made during our initial consultation last year.

We have previously looked at how much employment land we need over the next 20 years.

We've updated our assessment of future housing sites and used this to consider the capacity of the existing urban area for new development.

We've carried out an initial assessment of the sites submitted by developers next to the main Warrington urban area as well as possible sites for Gypsy and Travellers.

We've carried out a Sustainability Appraisal of the Preferred Development Option to look in more detail at the possible impacts on Warrington and its environment. This also includes a sustainability assessment of all of the sites submitted by developers next to the main urban area. We've also considered possible impacts on equalities issues.

We've undertaken an assessment of each site submitted by developers in terms of how important the site is for Warrington’s green belt. We've also responded to comments made to our Green Belt Assessment Report that we prepared for our initial consultation last year.

For each of the main areas of growth set out in the Preferred Development Option we've carried out some additional work to confirm that the preferred development areas are able to accommodate the level of growth required and to provide additional detail relating to infrastructure requirements, constraints and important development principles.

City centre/waterfront masterplan:

We've carried out a basic assessment of the scale of contribution we might be able to secure from new development to contribute towards providing new and improved infrastructure.

We've undertaken an initial overview transport in Warrington to identify existing problems and opportunities for improvement.

We've looked at the location of important minerals across the borough and also carried out an assessment of how the borough deals with is waste.

We've been working with the Cheshire and Warrington Local Enterprise Partnership in the review of their Strategic Economic Plan. This has included a review of the likely number of jobs that could come to Warrington over the period to 2040.