District council officers are currently snowed under dealing with the 12,000 responses to the draft of the new local plan.

The South Warwickshire Local Plan will determine where 55,000 homes are built in the area by 2050 and needs to be sent to the government for approval by the end of the year.

Warwick and Stratford-on-Avon District Councils recently held the final 'regulation 19' public consultation which gave residents, businesses and local councils the chance to have their say.

Speaking at last week's Warwick District Council meeting, Cllr Chris King revealed the scale of what was sent in.

"The regulation 19 consultation ended on September 8," he said.

"We have received an enormous response to the consultation with around 12,000 representations received.

"Before all these representations can be properly analysed and considered, they all need to be added to our consultation software system."

Responses were mainly sent in via the consultation software, however, there were a huge number sent in by letter and email.

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The councils were already facing a tight deadline to analyse the responses, finalise the plan, and get final sign-off from councillors before submitting it to the secretary of state.

"To meet our December target, we need all the representations on the system in the next few weeks," Cllr King continued.

"The team has been seeking support from other council departments to achieve this.

"It remains the intention to seek council support in December for submitting the plan ahead of the 31 December 2026 deadline for local plans under the legacy planmaking system.

"This comes all at a time when the policy team is facing some staffing challenges."