SOUTH Gloucestershire’s planning blueprint for the next 14 years is set to be decided tonight.

The district’s Core Strategy, which sets out housing figures and areas considered suitable for development, is the subject of a vote at a full South Gloucestershire Council meeting this evening.

If approved, it will be formally adopted by the authority as a rulebook for future planning applications.

The strategy has already been scrutinised by an independent planning inspector who ruled the document was ‘sound’.

The plan allows for 28,355 new homes to be built in the district by 2027 on certain areas of land including an extension of 2,500 homes in north Yate, east of Emerson’s Green, the Frenchay Hospital site and several locations in Thornbury.

Cllr Ben Stokes (Con, Boyd Valley) said adopting the strategy as policy would help protect areas of the Green Belt from development.

He said: "It's important that we can provide the new homes and jobs that our residents need, but in a way that doesn't concrete over our precious local Green Belt, which needs to be preserved for future generations."

"We have been fighting the risk of inappropriate development along the eastern fringe of the Bristol-South Gloucestershire urban area for several years and we will continue to fight to safeguard the area.

“Some small scale development is necessary to keep some villages viable and sustainable, but this can be done by working with local people and without swamping them."