The Parish Council adopted a very positive approach to development in its neighbourhood plan of 2017, allocating sites for approx. 70 homes in what is a small village in the district settlement hierarchy. We helped in devising a robust spatial strategy that would ensure that if proposals came forward for the many other unallocated sites around the edge of the village, the plan would hold firm.

 

A crucial part of the strategy was the use of a settlement boundary policy, which we had to argue for against the planning authority and developers at a public hearing for the plan’s examination. The examiner recommended the policy should be kept and it has since enabled the planning authority to refuse proposals outside it (with other proposals being withdrawn). We have supported the Parish Council in making robust representations on these planning applications. In doing so we have helped address some differences in judgement on the interpretation of the plan’s policies and on the weight to be attributed to them in the planning balance.

 

We have recently been re-appointed by the Parish Council to help them review their made plan to bring it into line with the new Local Plan.