What is this all about?
Our Steering Group is working on a Neighbourhood Development Plan for the Parish. This Plan will give us significant influence in planning the future of our village and its surroundings.
We are asking for your views on two important issues:
NEW HOUSING
and
LOCAL GREEN SPACES.
Please look at the information.
Ask questions.
Give us your ideas and comments
Our Parish is committed to producing a Neighbourhood Development Plan (NDP or ‘Neighbourhood Plan’). This Plan will play a significant part in how our village and surroundings change in the future – it will be an important policy document that will carry much weight in deciding where new housing or other development will be, and the design and scale of it, and in respecting our local environment and natural habitats.
The NDP will cover issues that are not specifically included in the Borough Local Plan (which is currently being revised) and will be complementary to that Local Plan.
The NDP is not intended to restrict development, but to support development of a type and scale that matches our community’s needs and wishes.
When completed, the NDP will be subject to a Parish referendum and also to examination by a planning inspector before it can be formally adopted by Test Valley BC.
The Neighbourhood Plan is being produced by a Steering Group of volunteers from the village with specialist assistance from consultants Bluestone Planning LLP. The consultants’ fees are
covered by grants obtained by the Parish Council from a Government agency set up to assist communities to produce Neighbourhood Plans.
The NDP will take full account of how the community would like to see the village and surroundings develop and change. Everybody has a different view, but the preliminary village survey last year
(see Board 3) provides a clear insight into what most residents agreed are important factors. The Steering Group has taken these forward in drafting a Vision and Objectives for the Plan.
This event is the first of a series which will invite your responses to specific questions on key elements in the Plan. This time we are looking at new housing and local green spaces. It is inevitable that new houses will be built in the village – new houses are needed both nationally and locally. Our NDP will give us considerable influence over what will be built and where, and which ‘special’ areas of land are protected.