Here in rural East Northants some of us will be going to vote a week today. I have my polling card already.
I will be voting on this question ‘Do you want East Northamptonshire Council to use the Neighbourhood Development Plan for Raunds to help it decide planning applications in the neighbourhood area?’ – for more details see here.
Now I have to admit that this has all crept up on me – I was only dimly aware of the Neighbourhood Plan and what it meant – but now I shall be going into the same voting cubicles in which I have voted in general elections, by-elections and the EU referendum to say yes or no to this question.
‘Yes’ or ‘no’ actually seem rather inadequate choices to a question to which I would like to respond ‘Well I agree with these bits, but I’m not very sure about those bits’ – but there you go! I should have been paying more attention earlier.
There has been quite a lot of this going on in these parts recently – see here.
And this is what it’s all about.
This whole business clearly isn’t restricted to rural East Northants so maybe, being wise people, the readers of this blog (in England? I think this is England only) are already fully aware and active on these matters. Good for you if you are.
A quick search showed that the state of play in other areas is as follows: Suffolk, Devon, Durham, Derbyshire, Kent.
Mark, You are right to ensure the Neighbourhood Plan is appropriate. However without one in place it seems to be increasingly difficult to oppose planning applications.
The problems, as I understand them, with Neighbourhood Plans is that (a) they must comply with overall Government plans (NPPF) even when a ‘neighbourhood’ may be in disagreement with such plans, and (b) they can be – and HAVE BEEN – over-ruled by Local Planning Authorities and Ministers of State, even AFTER the Neighbourhood Plan had already been ‘officially’ adopted!
So, you have to ‘play along’ with Government plans, including their hugely inflated growth figures – now shown to be fake …
See:
http://www.oxfordmail.co.uk/news/15538993.We_need_far_fewer_homes_than_previously_thought___so_do_we_need_to_build_on_Green_Belt_/
– … and even then you can be arbitrarily over-ruled.
See:
http://www.thame.net/archives/27697
http://www.getsurrey.co.uk/news/surrey-news/guildford-local-plan-council-hell-12883400
http://www.sussexexpress.co.uk/news/councillors-resign-in-protest-against-overturned-planning-decision-1-7705057
http://www.chewvalleygazette.co.uk/article.cfm?id=101448&headline=Villagers%20take%20council%20to%20court%20for%20ignoring%20neighbourhood%20plan§ionIs=news&searchyear=2016
https://www.theguardian.com/society/joepublic/2011/apr/06/local-planning-powers-taken-away-by-centre
https://www.cripps.co.uk/written-ministerial-statement-neighbourhood-planning-making-go-along/
http://www.banburyguardian.co.uk/news/disappointment-over-hook-norton-plan-override-1-7753193
http://www.littlehamptongazette.co.uk/news/your-say/littlehampton-s-neighbourhood-plan-ignored-1-7731342
http://www.middlewichguardian.co.uk/yoursay/letters/10837776.Neighbourhood_Plan_ignored/
https://www.change.org/p/cornwall-council-phil-mason-council-s-chief-planning-officer-has-failed-cornwall-and-must-resign
http://www.roartoday.co.uk
etc etc
Neighbourhood plans are a sop to ‘localism’ – so long as you fully agree with the Government’s development targets.
Yes, you are being asked to agree to a process that has to conform to the weak and imprecise NPPF, but at least it has been written by local people that hopefully have fought to make the plan as effective as possible within a tight straight-jacket. Without a plan, you are completely exposed to mercenary developers with huge resources to hire the best consultants and legal teams. Try googling ‘Gladman’.