Alison Sawalhi

Husthwaite Parish Council – Planning Update – Dec 2025

Husthwaite Parish Council Planning Update November 2025

Neighbourhood Plan – Consultation has launched!

After three years+, we have finally got the draft Husthwaite Parish Neighbourhood Development Plan (the draft Plan) out for consultation.  It is on the village website here along with the draft Design Code which officially forms part of it.

We are hoping everyone will let us have their views on the draft Plan using our google feedback form here or by communicating via email or paper form.    The draft plan is based on all the community engagement to date plus a review of a huge amount of  ‘evidence’ and its  overarching objective is to facilitate needed development in a way which preserves the best of Husthwaite.  However, this is very much a consultation process – the plan will undoubtedly need some editing – so please do share your thoughts.

The draft plan is split into the same broad themes that we have used through the engagement process:

• Design and Heritage
• Natural Environment
• Housing
• Business
• Community Assets
• Renewable Energy
• Drainage
• Transport
• Connectivity

Each section contains the objectives and justification for the proposed policies which will be used to guide and assess future planning applications in the parish.  Overall they seek a balancing of the interests of residents, visitors, biodiversity and businesses in a way which seeks to deliver a sustainable future for the parish.   We need your confirmation that we have got that balance right – or help on how we could adjust any policy to deliver a better outcome.

We also have to send the draft plan to a long list of statutory consultees like Yorkshire Water, Historic England and most importantly North Yorkshire Council. All their comments and suggested changes will also have to be reviewed and actioned.

It may be easier to look at the draft Plan in hard copy and we have these available to loan – email husthwaitepc@hotmail.co.uk.  Copies – and a summary – will also be available at the drop in events in the Village Hall (refreshments included). The next two are Friday 12 December 12-2pm and Wednesday 17 December 2-4pm.  We will schedule another one for early January.

We anticipate  residents will have questions about the draft plan so we would encourage coming along to a drop in event where hopefully the Parish Council/neighbourhood plan team can help with these.  There will also be a brief Parish Council meeting on Tuesday 16 December 2025 at 7pm at which questions can also be raised

We are delighted to announce that the draft Husthwaite Parish Neighbourhood Development Plan 2025-2036  has been launched.

This is formal public consultation in accordance with Regulation 14 of The Neighbourhood Planning (General) Regulations 2012.

The consultation period runs from 4th December 2025 up to midnight on 23rd January 2026 .

Please come along to one of the drop in events to see the draft plan and discuss it with a member of the Neighbourhood Plan team.

Saturday 6th December 10am-4pm
Friday 12th December 12-2pm
Wednesday 17th December 2-4pm

We would really love to hear from you and there will be various ways in which to do this.

You can either-

• Complete an online survey by following this link https://forms.gle/5CQR5GonjfK6HxuZ8
• By email to: husthwaitepc@hotmail.co.uk
• By post to: Sarah Aspinall, Fairbanks, Husthwaite, YO61 4PX
• In person by filling out a feedback form at one of the drop-in sessions.

Note: Husthwaite Parish Council is the data controller of your personal data for the purposes
of applicable data protection legislation in relation to Neighbourhood Plan making. We
are required as part of this formal consultation process to collect names, addresses
and other contact details. However, when publishing the representations received we
will only publish the name of the individual respondent or the organisation that they
represent. All other information will be omitted or redacted

All personal information will be processed in accordance with the Parish Council’s data protection policy

A summary of all representations will be made public when the plan is submitted to North
Yorkshire Council for examination.

Please contact Sarah Aspinall via husthwaitepc@hotmail.co.uk if you would like to find out more.

We are delighted to announce Husthwaite as one of three North Yorkshire villages named as ‘Dark Skies Friendly Communities’ for helping to combat light pollution.

The villages of Husthwaite, Lastingham and Sleightholme Dale are the latest to join the scheme, run by the North York Moors National Park and the Howardian Hills Partnership.

The scheme aims to reduce light pollution and enhance the night sky by encouraging communities to alter their external lights.

Working with Husthwaite Village Hall Committee and Husthwaite Parish Council dark sky friendly lights have been installed at the village hall. With thanks to Richard Darn, Howardian Hills National Landscape for their assistance and enthusiasm and for the funding that was made available for  the project.  Richard commented they are very impressed by the degree to which people in the village clearly value the night time environment which is so important for wildlife as well as preserving tranquility and our view of the stars.  Richard also added the village hall dark lighting scheme is especially impressive and one of the most successful they have seen.

This initiative forms part of a broader effort to preserve the North York Moors and Howardian Hills landscapes.

According to the National Park’s head of nature recovery projects and dark skies lead officer, Mike Hawtin, the addition of the three new villages means that around 2,500 people will soon be living within an accredited Dark Skies Friendly Community.

Mr Hawtin said: “Parish councils, residents, and businesses realise that whereas solving other pollutant crises can seem overwhelming, altering external lights to become more dark skies friendly is something fairly simple and positive they can do, literally at a flick of a switch.

“It’s helped by the fact that more people now understand how reducing light pollution can enhance the tranquillity of an area as well as nature, wildlife, and human health reaping the benefit too.”

The scheme, introduced in 2024, acknowledges neighbourhood efforts to protect and improve the night sky.

Draft Local Green Space Study November 2025 pre-submission draft

The Husthwaite Neighbourhood Plan Steering Group has carried out a review of green spaces in the Parish and identified several Local Green Spaces in addition to those already designated in the Hambleton Local Plan. These are recommended for designation as Local Green Spaces. This is a draft report for consultation.

Between April and September 2025, Action Fraud has received 2,790 crime reports relating to Winter Fuel Payment scams, with victims reporting losses totalling over £27,000.

Winter Fuel Payments are made automatically, you do not need to do anything. If you receive any text messages about Winter Fuel Payments, it’s a scam.

Planning update October 2025

Husthwaite Neighbourhood Plan  – almost ready!!

After literally years of work, we are very close to completing a consultation draft of the Husthwaite Neighbourhood plan.   There have been delays this year for a number of reasons, primarily the cancellation of funding for neighbourhood plan groups, regardless of the stage they have reached and also illness/absence of key personnel.  But we are now nearly there – currently making final revisions to policies and sorting photos, maps and diagrams to illustrate the text.   We still have to obtain some informal feedback from North Yorkshire Council – better to know now rather than later if it has any major concerns – and then we can circulate to the Parish.

We are really looking forward to sharing the draft Plan with the local community as it is based on all the views and comments received over the last few years, particularly in the Parish Survey last year and the drop in events at the village hall.  We hope you will be impressed but also critical and let us know if  you have any concerns.   Obviously there are limits to what we can do in our Plan as we have to comply with national and local planning policy  but we hope that residents and businesses will nevertheless feel that the draft Plan does broadly reflect local aims and needs.

We will deliver a letter to each household in the Parish as soon as the Plan is ready to be reviewed – it will be available online and in paper form.  There will also be announcements on the village website and by email. Instructions on how to comment will be included.

When the public funding programme was dismantled in June, a number of MPs spoke out against the decision including Dr Luke Evans who said: “Neighbourhood plans are not obstacles to progress; they are the architects of local consent. To dismantle them is to forget that true planning begins not in Whitehall, but in the beating hearts of our communities, which call these places home.”

We wholeheartedly agree with this which is why we are determined to see this project through to completion and with the community’s continued support we should be able to do that.   The forthcoming consultation is the next key step and we are very much hoping for a good response.

May, June, July 2025

We have a draft plan!!  It is nearly 100 pages long and we believe it addresses all the concerns and aspirations that our community has highlighted through surveys, drop in events and comments.  It still needs quite a bit of work –  lots of tidying up to do and also final checking against national and local planning policy to ensure it is compliant – but we are looking forward to sharing it with everyone as soon as possible.

Loss of funding

It is a huge achievement to reach this point given all the other demands on our time and the fact that we are currently without funding. As previously reported, the government’s annual funding for supporting neighbourhood planning runs from 1 April-31 March.  We have been waiting since 31 March for them to open up the applications for 2025-26  so we could apply for the final tranche of £8k usually available to groups like ours that are approaching the consultation and referendum stages.  However, in mid June the Government announced that there will be no more funding – nothing at all, regardless of progress or expectation.  This is a huge blow and, despite obvious pressures on the economy,  very surprising.   Given the amount of taxpayer money already invested in the creation of neighbourhood plans under the Localism Act, it seems wrong to frustrate the process in this way. It also penalises less affluent communities in particular and is bad news for local authorities who will now have to try and find the resource to help groups who cannot access professional support.

The Yorkshire Local Councils Association has consulted on the implications of the loss of funding with a view to lobbying for a reversal of the decision but no-one is very optimistic!  We have also spoken to North Yorkshire Council which is looking into practical ways it can further assist groups but it cannot provide any direct funding.

The Parish Council has stepped in to pay our Planning Consultant for work already done on our draft plan and he has also very nobly offered a reduced rate to see us through the final stages.    The Parish Council is planning to make an application to the Village Trust to ask it to share the costs so that we do not waste all the years of work which has already gone into this project.

So for now please bear with us but we hope to have the perfect early autumn reading available for you in a few weeks!

Sarah Aspinall on behalf of Parish Council and Neighbourhood Plan working group