Alison Sawalhi

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

April has again been a drafting and research month. It also saw the release of a corrected Housing Needs Assessment.

We alerted AECOM to the fact that there were some calculation errors in the Housing Needs Assessment mainly relating to the plan period (which is 11 years but had been put in as 15 in some places).  They issued a revised document here.  This has resulted in some changes to their  overall conclusions –  in particular they estimate we need another 6.6 (call it 7!) affordable homes (to buy) over the current supply in the village by 2036 and not 9 as previously advised.

The Local Landscape Character Assessment, now some 68 pages in length including photographs, is nearly done. This is the first time a detailed analysis of this type has been created and it should prove invaluable in assisting planners and developers going forwards.

As might be expected, drafting detailed planning policies covering the whole range of necessary topics from parking to playgrounds and bungalows to bats is taking more time than expected. Our planning consultant is working on this  (with our help) as much as he can around other commitments and we hope we will have a final first draft in May.

Once all the documents are drafted, we will then need to sort out any missing evidence and get some informal feedback from North Yorkshire Council. We will also need to carry out required Environmental Regulations Screening. At the same time, we are keen to get some informal comments from a small group of ‘first readers’ from outside the working group. If you would able to assist with this, please do get in touch with Sarah on 01347 868155 or ℅ husthwaitepc@hotmail.co.uk.

We hope to get to the full Parish Consultation on the draft Plan and the draft Design Code in June. We thank everyone for their patience.

We have been doing a lot of writing in March!

Husthwaite Design Code

The Draft Husthwaite Design Code prepared by external consultants, AECOM was approved by Locality  (which administers the government funding for neighbourhood plans).

This 71 page document analyses the historical development of Husthwaite village and the traditional features, including layout, building materials, styles and setting which contribute to its unique character and sense of place.  It also considers the countryside part of the parish and looks at key elements of development in that area.   The Design Codes themselves then set out a list of requirements, some mandatory, which all new development should take into account so as to maintain the essential character of Husthwaite but also create well-designed sustainable buildings.

Although the draft Design Code has no formal status yet, as it will be subject to full public and statutory consultation along with the draft Neighbourhood Plan in due course, the Parish Council feels it is helpful to share this now with residents and potential developers as it indicates the standards the Parish Council would like to see applied to new housing and other development in the Parish.  The Parish Council also plans to draw the attention of planning officers to the draft Design Code in relation to new planning applications as relevant.

If anyone has any comments on the draft Design Code, they will have a chance to submit these during the consultation process but they are also very welcome to email the NP working group c/o husthwaitepc@hotmail.co.uk.

Local Landscape Character Asessment

Following several days doing field studies in various parts of the parish, the ‘environment team’ are currently finalising their first draft of the complete  Local Landscape Character Assessment.

Neighbourhood Plan

The drafting of the Neighbourhood Plan policies are also well under way and we hope to have a complete first draft ready in the next week or so.  We will then need to sort out any missing evidence including statistical data and maps and get some informal feedback from North Yorkshire Council.

We would then like to invite a small group of ‘first readers’ from outside the working group to review the draft plan and give us some constructive feedback. If you would able to assist with this, please do get in touch with Sarah on 01347 868155 or ℅ husthwaitepc@hotmail.co.uk.

The latest planning update from the Parish Council has been issued: Husthwaite Parish Council – Planning Update – March 2025