Have Your Say: Portsmouth’s Local Plan and the Future of Our City’s Buildings

Studio SCT
Nov 26, 2025
2 min read

Portsmouth City Council is currently consulting on the Pre-Submission Local Plan Addendum 2025. This is a major planning document that will shape how the city grows and changes up to 2040. It covers new housing, regeneration sites, employment land, the seafront, climate policy and how the city uses its limited land. This consultation runs until 8 January 2026 at 23:59 and every resident, business, and organisation is entitled to respond.

At the Sustainable Conservation Trust, we’ve been reviewing the evidence that supports the new Local Plan, including the Housing & Economic Land Availability Assessment (HELAA 2025). One issue jumped out very clearly:

A number of development sites owned by the Council assume the demolition of existing buildings, often large, repairable ones, without assessing whether reuse, retrofit or partial retention could meet the city’s needs.

This matters for several reasons:

Demolition has a huge carbon impact at a time when Portsmouth has declared a climate emergency.
Reusing buildings saves resources, cuts emissions, and keeps materials in use.
Portsmouth’s building stock tells important stories about our communities, industries, and heritage.
Many cities across the UK and Europe are now adopting retrofit-first and circular construction approaches — but these alternatives don’t appear in the current evidence base.

What the evidence shows

From the 2025 HELAA, several Council-owned sites involve either confirmed or assumed demolition, including:

Already demolished

Horatia House
Leamington House
The Gibson Centre (Somers Orchard)

Demolition required or implied

City Records Office
Bridge Centre, Fratton
Arundel Street parcels
Port Solent redevelopment area

These are substantial buildings with significant embodied energy already invested in them. The Local Plan evidence does not assess their reuse or retrofitting potential.

Why your voice matters

This consultation stage is important because:

The Local Plan will guide decisions for the next 15+ years.
The Planning Inspector will read every comment sent in.
Submissions do not need technical expertise — lived experience matters too.
You don’t need to support or oppose the whole plan. You can comment on just one issue.

What you might want to comment on

Residents may wish to raise points such as:

Portsmouth should have a retrofit-first approach rather than assuming demolition.
The Council should assess whole-life carbon, not just new construction capacity.
Community assets and local character should be considered before clearance.
Council-owned sites should lead by example in sustainable and circular development.

You are free to agree, disagree or raise entirely different points, what matters is that your voice is heard.

Why we are sharing this

SCT is committed to helping communities engage with planning in an informed way. Portsmouth has an incredible history, a unique built environment, and a strong creative and civic identity. How we treat existing buildings, whether we reuse, retrofit or demolish, affects not just carbon emissions, but community life, affordability, cultural continuity, and long-term resilience.

The Local Plan sets the direction for all of this. If you care about Portsmouth’s future, please take a few minutes to make your voice heard.

If you’d like help understanding the issues or drafting a response, feel free to get in touch with us.

How to respond

You can respond in any of these ways: