Neighbourhood Development Plan for Beckley and Stowood Parish

What are Neighbourhood Plans?

Neighbourhood planning is part of a new approach to planning introduced by the Localism Act 2011. The new system is designed to be more collaborative and gives communities more powers to shape the future of the places where they live and work.

Neighbourhood Planning is the government's initiative of trying to empower local communities to help make and take forward planning proposals at a local level.  The idea being that local people will drive, and then help to shape, how their local communities grow and develop over the next coming years.

Neighbourhood plans can only be made by one of two groups, towns/parishes or neighbourhood forums.  As our area has parishes, town and parishes will take the lead in pushing them forward.

Neighbourhood Development Plans set out a vision, aims, policies and proposals for the future development of a neighbourhood. If adopted, the neighbourhood plan will be part of the statutory development plan for the area in question.

The local authority and planning inspectors will have to take the plan into account when making planning decisions. This gives the plans more weight than some types of plan, such as parish plans or community plans.

DEVELOPMENT SITE CRITERIA

 A meeting for the whole parish was held on Monday 10th October at the Jubilee Hall.  Approximately 40 people attended to discuss and decide the criteria for the development sites for new houses in the Parish.

CRITERIA FOR DEVELOPMENT SITES

BECKLEY AND STOWOOD NEIGHBOURHOOD PLAN

 

Beckley and Stood Parish lies completely within the Oxford Green Belt.

Green Belt serves five purposes:

1. to check the unrestricted sprawl of large built-up areas;
2. to prevent neighbouring towns merging into one another;
3. to assist in safeguarding the countryside from   encroachment;
4. to preserve the setting and special character of historic towns; and
5. to assist in urban regeneration, by encouraging the recycling of derelict and other urban land. 

 

The Neighbourhood Plan must comply with

Ø  Comply with national policy and guidance (NPPF/NPPG National Planning Policy Framework and Planning Practice Guidance)

NEIGHBOURHOOD DEVELOPMENT PLAN – PRE-SUBMISSION PUBLIC CONSULTATION

The Neighbourhood Plan Steering Group and the Parish Council will launch the public consultation on the Neighbourhood Plan on 1st December 2017 until 24th February.   The normal consultation period is 6 weeks, but as this consultation runs over the Christmas holiday we are running it for an additional 7 weeks.   There will also be a public meeting on Tuesday 6th February at 8pm at the village hall with a presentation, questions and answers on the Plan. The whole plan, which runs to approximately 200 pages is divided into 2 sections – the Plan itself (just under 100 pages) and the Evidence Base, which contains the results of all the consultations and feedback and other documents etc.  The most important parts of the Plan are in Section 2. – A Vision for Beckley and Stowood and Section 3. Neighbourhood Plan Policies and these contain the policies that we have already consulted upon. Section 1. contains the history, geography and background information on the Parish, which is interesting and well researched.  There is also a summary document on the policies.