A PLAN intended to allow for more than 2,000 new homes in Monmouthshire faces a delay due to a council “error”.

Hearing sessions, which were due to take place next week to examine the proposals for new housing, including large sites in and around Monmouth, Chepstow, Abergavenny and Caldicot, have had to be postponed until September.

Monmouthshire Council has been working on the current proposed local development plan for four years.

It identifies new housing and employment sites across the county as well as providing the policies by which all planning applications can be judged.

Without a plan in place, the county could face almost unrestricted development, as the council wouldn’t have an up-to-date planning policy to manage and control development.

Schemes included in the local development plan include more than 270 new homes on fields at Leasbrook in Monmouth and 146 new homes, as well as a care home and hotel development at Mounton Road, Chepstow.

It also proposes 770 new homes between Caldicot and Portskewett and 500 new homes east of Abergavenny, while 50 per cent of all new housing will have to be “affordable”.

The hearings, which had been due to take place on Tuesday, June 16 and 17 would have allowed the independent inspectors, who are assessing the plan, to hear from objectors and consider evidence put forward, including from the council.

The inspectors would then propose changes they consider necessary, which the full council will have to consider and approve before the plan can be adopted for use, if it is approved by the Welsh Government on the recommendation of the inspectors.

That council decision could now be delayed with the hearing sessions unable to take place until September 8.

The two inspectors have accepted the request to delay next week’s hearing, but have told them they are clear the delay is due to a “failure” by the council.

In its June 1 letter to them, the council had asked for the delay “to ensure full compliance” with regulation 23 of 2005 Welsh planning legislation, which relates to publicising the hearing dates.

The inspectors stated “the council has failed to comply with the requirements of regulation 23”.

Their letter stated: “To ensure that as few eligible participants as possible are inconvenienced by the council’s error, and taking account of inspector and programme officer commitments, the earliest available date for commencement of the hearing sessions is Tuesday 8 September 2026.”

The council has been working on the current version of the development plan, which has been subject to a number of public consultations, since the current Labour administration came to power at County Hall in 2022.

It was only able to put the plan forward to the inspectors last October when it was approved by the casting vote of the chairman after the council was deadlocked when asked to approve it.

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Work on the plan had to be restarted, by the new Labour council administration, after the plan being drawn up by the previous Conservative council administration was rejected by the Welsh Government for proposing too many new homes.