Neighbourhood Plan – General Information

NEIGHBOURHOOD DEVELOPMENT PLAN

  1. Introduction
    • Neighbourhood Planning is a central government initiative introduced by the Localism Act 2011 and recognised in the National Planning Policy Framework (NPPF) in March 2012. The aim of the legislation is to empower local communities to use the planning system to promote appropriate and sustainable development in their area. Neighbourhood Development Plans (NPs) must be in conformity with the Local Planning Authority’s (LPAs) Local Plan.
    • NPs are to be shaped by and produced for the local community. The role of the Working Group and Parish Council has been to act as facilitators in enabling local residents, businesses and community groups to determine the focus of their NP and devise policies to tackle local issues.

Status of the Neighbourhood Plan

  • Once adopted, the NP will be the primary document of the Development Plan at the local level alongside the Charnwood Local Plan, and will be used to determine applications in accordance with the Planning and Compulsory Purchase Act 2004 Section 38 (6) in that the determination of Planning applications ‘must be made in accordance with the Plan unless material considerations indicate otherwise.
  • The NP must be in general conformity with the Charnwood Local Plan and therefore runs over the same Plan period up until 2028. Therefore the Neighbourhood Plan has been prepared to take this Plan period into consideration and deals with issues over this time period.
  • Thrussington is the most easterly Parish within the Borough of Charnwood. It borders six other rural Parishes, Ratcliffe-on-the-Wreake, Seagrave, Burton on the Wolds – Cotes –Prestwold, Rearsby within Charnwood Borough, Hoby and Rotherby and Broughton and Dalby. The Parish is bounded on the west by the A46 trunk road giving easy access to Leicester, Loughborough and Nottingham, and the River Wreake on the south. There are approximately 240 business, residential and farm dwellings within the Parish most of which are situated in the village of Thrussington, and a substantial amount of farmland. The village is mentioned in the Domesday book and boasts a church of Norman origin, the Church of the Holy Trinity, a grade II* listed building.
  • The Parish Council decided to develop a Neighbourhood Plan in 2015, partially due to the Localism Act 2011. This Act allows a Parish to develop a Neighbourhood Development Plan, a town planning document, which proactively gives local people greater control and say over how the community develops and evolves. This enables residents to influence any future development within the Parish. A further reason was that residents and the Parish Council had voiced concerned over large developments near Syston, Barkby, Queniborough and a proposed development in Rearsby, and, that some element of control rather than just a presumption in favour of sustainable development. Another reason was the idea to produce a Neighbourhood Plan to supplement the, then, recently issued Charnwood Core Strategy 2011-2028.
  • The Parish Council and the local community wanted a say in any future development and so a working group was set up to develop a Plan in late 2015. The Parish was formally designated as the Neighbourhood Plan area 27th April 2016.

 

 

 

Evolution of the NP and Consultation

  • Setting up the Working Group – Together with three Parish Councils, decided that a Working Group offered the best means to producing a Plan. The group was made up from volunteers within the Parish and Parish Councillors. The introductory meeting was 12th December, 2015. The aim was to be fully open to all residents with updates through the village magazine and events for all stakeholders and residents.
  • Designation of the Parish as the area to be covered by the Plan – Designation was requested and after consultation formally designated April 27th, 2016, by Charnwood Borough Council.
  • Obtain grant and choose consultants – After interviewing a number of candidates Urban Imprint (then BPUD) was selected as our consultants and partners in April 2016. The Parish was updated at the Annual Parish meeting in May 2016. We formally applied to Locality for a grant and an initial grant of £5,506 was awarded 10th June, 2016. The Parish Council had already pledged £1,000 for 2016 (and, again, in 2017).
  • First consultation event- This consisted of a Launch event 2nd July, 2016. All stakeholders and residents were invited. The event outlined what a Neighbourhood Development Plan was and how it could help the Parish and progress to date. A SWOT (Strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, threats) analysis took place.
  • Questionnaire – From the SWOT analysis a questionnaire was developed. It was issued to all stakeholders and residents September 2016. Later analysis led to the next consultation.

 

Neighbourhood Plan Launch 2nd July 2016

 

  • Website development – During September and October the Neighbourhood Plan part of the Thrussington Village website was developed and became available November 2016. All information and meetings were uploaded as an open site.
  • Second consultation – The analysis of the data from the questionnaire allowed the development of the format for the second consultation, February 4th, 2017. Again this was a Parish event. It was to determine what policies could be required for the Plan. From this an emerging policy guideline document was produced for review.  This has been reviewed and will form the basis of the draft plan. The aim is to produce a draft Plan for initial review in May 2017.
  • Obtain second grant – We formally applied to Locality for a grant and a second grant of £3,394 was awarded 21st February, 2017.
  • Obtain third grant – Although the Locality bids largely covered the expenses we could not cover all the costs so a third grant was requested from the Big Lottery. An amount of £3,248 was awarded 24th March, 2017 and will allow us to complete the project.

 

 

 

 

 

  • Annual Parish meeting – The Parish will be updated on the progress of the project.
  • Draft plan written and printed in July 2017. It has been distributed to all residences and businesses in the Parish. An electronic copy has been mailed to all mandatory bodies as defined by Charnwood Borough Council.
  • An open event was held 9 September, 2017 to allow residents to question our consultants, Urban Imprint, and the working group.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

  • All comments from the review have been reviewed and incorporated within the plan. A bundle of documents including a revised plan, sustainability appraisal, basic conditions statement, environmental assessment statement and consultation report have been produced and are under review.
  • Plan was submitted to Charnwood Borough Council and was under public consultation from Jan 12th to Feb 25th, 2018. Documents and details are available on this website.
  • Independent examiner visited Thrussington mid March 2018. He has asked us to clarify a few points. His queries are on this web site. The Working group has responded to Charnwood who will collate our responses with theirs and forward to the examiner.
  • Examiner produced his report April 19, 2018. The document is attached to this website. He recommends that we progress to referendum once recommendations are implemented into the Plan.
  • Modifications to the plan acceoted and approved by Charnwood Borough Council. CBC are to arrange a date for the public referendum.
  • June 28th. Charnwood has set referendum date to be August 2nd 2018. Full document package is on this website and will be available in the Village Hall.
  • August 2nd:
    Verified count: 143 voted from voting population of 457. Turnout 31.3%.
    Yes: 138     No: 5
    Count verified and referendum passed, Plan is therefore “made”(becomes a legal document).
    Plan goes to council (Charnwood) to be adopted Sept 13th.

  • August 29th: Formal closure of working group. Plan now has full weight in law. A list of aspirations produced during the process has been made available to the Parish Council for consideration.

 

 

WORKING GROUP

Dave Young

Candi Newby

Nigel Hainsworth

Tom Prior

Nich Stanyard

Wendy Jones

Verity Munden

Mark Thistlethwaite

Bob Phillips (Urban Imprint)

Jo Gregory (Urban Imprint)

 

 

OTHER CONTRIBUTORS

Paul Wilcox

Suzan Rubins

Louise Newcombe

Duncan Cuckow

Patrick Rendall

E Guest

Ben Squires

Helen Chadwick

James Poland

With thanks to Reg Morgan and Bev Kearns for use of the Church and Village Hall respectively

 

Please note that all residents are volunteers. If you wish to contact the Working Group please use the contact form available on this site and we will try to respond as soon as possible. Thank you.