The Minerals and Waste Planning Policy team at Essex County Council is responsible for creating, reviewing and updating the documents that underpin planning policy as it relates to minerals and waste. They work closely with the planning application team to ensure that changes in legislation are communicated to the people that make planning decisions on behalf of the county.

The Essex Minerals Local Plan 1996 and the Essex & Southend Waste Local Plan 2001 provide the local planning policies which govern minerals and waste development in Essex.  Both documents form part of the statutory ‘Development Plan’ and should be read in conjunction with the relevant District or Borough Local Plan or Development Plan Document(s) when development is considered.

To see how we monitor current minerals and waste planning policies, please see the Annual Monitoring Reports

Over time, all Local Plans will be replaced by Development Plan Documents, and at County Hall work is well underway on the production of a Minerals Development Document and a separate Waste Development Document(s) - the latter covering the administrative areas of both Essex and Southend.


The Minerals Development Document is progressing through the ‘Issues and Options’ stage, and most recently the Authority consulted upon the ‘Minerals Development Document: Preferred Approach (Dec 2010)’. This document set out, for the first time, the Authority’s preferred strategy for future mineral development and the sites which may become preferred sites for future extraction looking ahead to the year 2028. 

2,400 responses were received to MDD Preferred Approach Consultation New and substantially revised sites submitted with the consultation responses were included in a short additional ‘Minerals Development Document: Site Allocations – Issues and Options paper (August 2011).  In excess of 1000 representations were received, and these are currently being uploaded onto the consultation portal.

The first Waste Development Document: Issues and Options paper was consulted upon late in 2010.  The Waste Development Document Preferred Approach consultation runs from 24 November 2011 until 19 January 2012.


To view previous minerals and waste consultation documents, the responses received and the supporting documentation go to Policy Consultations and view ‘Associated Planning documents’.