Why are we doing a Neighbourhood Plan?
Developing a Neighbourhood Plan will give our parish community direct power to develop a shared vision for the parish and shape its development and growth in the coming years.
The new Neighbourhood Plan will update and build upon the old Parish Plan produced in 2007 but will have a greater impact. Neighbourhood Plans are planning policy documents that can be prepared by local communities. The law says that when a Neighbourhood Plan has been approved (by both the community and the local planning authority), it becomes official planning policy, and must be considered when planning application decisions are made in relation to the Parish. They are a very good way to give local communities a say in the way their area develops in the future.
Thank you
Public engagement and consultation are central to the Neighbourhood Plan process and our parish wide survey has been a significant keystone in our consultation process. The survey was available in April online (through the platform provided by GoCollaborate) and in paper form. 157 responses were received online and 41 by paper. We estimate that these represent about 60% of the total households in the Parish which is a fantastic result and well above the average response to such surveys. The Parish Council and the NP working group are hugely grateful to everyone who took the time to respond.
Congratulations
We are also pleased to announce that the winner of the prize draw (picked randomly by the GoCollaborate system from all 198 surveys) was Lawrie Hill. Congratulations to him!
What’s next?
The full summary of results will be made available via the GoCollaborate platform in due course. The next stage involves us working with our planning consultant, Steve Besford Foster (funded by our grant from Locality) to review the 7881 separate answers/selections/submissions in the surveys and to use these to identify themes and objectives for our Plan. We will also have to collate other evidence such as population and housing statistics etc to support the Plan and will likely set up some small working groups to develop elements of the plan.
Separately we will also prepare a report for the Parish Council to identify the wider community issues and concerns which the PC can look to address.
Once in final form, the draft Plan will be shown to the Local Planning Authority to ensure it is compliant with national and local planning policy and then made available to everyone in the Parish for review and comment before it goes through the final regulatory processes. All this is likely to take 6-9 months – our goal is to have a draft ready for everyone to look at by the end of the year.
We need you!
We are keen to bring on board anyone who would like to help with the preparation of the plan – please contact Sarah Aspinall via husthwaitepc@hotmail.co.uk if you are interested or would like to find out more.
