A reminder that the draft of the revised Neighbourhood Development Plan (NDP) went out to its first statutory consultation at the beginning of August.
Residents have until 11th September to comment on the plan. All the documents, can be viewed here:
https://www.longwittenham.com/revised-ndp-reg-14-draft-july-2018/
Please send comments to peter.rose@longwittenham.com.
The draft documents were completed in April 2018 but there were delays, in particular awaiting the completion of the Strategic Environmental Assessment which was carried out by an outside body.
The original NDP was not given much weight at the planning inquiry in November 2017 when the Kler homes plan was examined by an inspector. The main reason for this was that the NDP did not specifically allocate sites for housing development (following advice from SODC). The parish council was advised that a revision of the plan with an allocation of sites for housing would give the village more certainty against new planning applications in the future.
The revised plan includes most of the policies contained in the original plan: the community hub, design requirements for any new housing, housing mix, community infrastructure list, parking and the environmentally sensitive zone along Fieldside all remain.
In addition, the revised plan now allocates sites for housing. The sites are the community hub site with supporting housing, the site with existing planning permission at the end of Fieldside and the existing school and village hall sites. The parish council has also added a policy on footpaths and cycle paths and two new policies to protect the countryside outside of the current built area and the views in and out of the village.
Parish Councillor Peter Rose who heads the NDP Steering Committee said: “We still have a little way to go, as there are a number of statutory steps before we can hold the public referendum for the plan. Once the current consultation is complete, we will need to review and address any responses received, before submitting the final draft to SODC.”
The target date for submission of the plan to the district council is the end of September. Once given approval by SODC, there is a further six week consultation period by the district council. There is then an independent examination of the submitted plan which is expected to start within two weeks following the district council’s consultation.
The independent examiner will determine whether the plan should proceed to public referendum. Some of these stages are open ended, so it is difficult to give a referendum date at this stage.
Mr Rose said: “We have worked really hard to complete the revision as soon as possible. However, I share the frustrations expressed by others that it has taken longer than predicted. This is mainly due to circumstances beyond our control. I would like to thank Andrea Pellegram, our professional advisor who has worked tirelessly to get us to this stage.”
“The addition of a policy on allocating sites for housing and the policies protecting our surrounding countryside should give the plan more certainty against speculative development in the future.”
