• safeguard the valued characteristics of the area, including its natural, built and archaeological heritage, while promoting sustainable quality development, which meets local needs and which supports local businesses and enterprise;
  
• promote the preservation and enhancement of the District’s unique character to reinforce its sense of identity and place. It will encourage diversity by promoting an appropriate mix of high quality development, services and facilities aimed at helping local communities thrive and prosper;
  
• encourage inward investment and tourism through supporting existing local enterprises and the establishment of new desirable ventures, which are sensitive to distinctive, local characteristics; and
  
• have regard to the desirability of reducing the consumption of non-renewable natural resource, reducing pollution and protecting key natural assets so that the needs and expectations of younger and future generations are safeguarded.

• Meeting the community’s present and predicted needs for housing, employment, transport, shopping, recreation, leisure, social and community facilities.

Sustainable development

• Conserving natural environmental resources and minimising waste and pollution while promoting levels, locations and forms of development designed to avoid adverse environmental impacts. This is to ensure that where development is necessary, it will contribute towards improving the quality of life of present and future generations who live, work and visit the District.

Quality development

• Where new development is both necessary and sustainable, it will also protect and enhance Sedgemoor’s distinctive environmental characteristics. The Council will expect high standards in architecture, building design, and in urban and landscape design (including transportation infra-structure), to ensure that new development responds to its local context and creates a sense of identity and place.

Monitoring and Review

• Local Planning Authorities are required to keep under review the matters which may be expected to affect the development of their area. The Council will continue to monitor economic, social and environmental factors and trends affecting the District, to inform future review of the local plan. In addition the Council will monitor changes that occur in local, regional and national policy that may indicate the need for aspects of the Plan to be reviewed and updated.
   
• The Plan needs to be responsive to such change, ensuring that it continues to contribute to the aims and objectives set by the Council for the benefit of the local community. Monitoring the effectiveness of the Plan’s policies and proposals will enable informed decisions to be made about how policies should be changed and improved in the future. This approach is consistent with the ‘Plan,Monitor and Manage’ approach advocated by government in national planning guidance.