Neighbourhood Plan Review Working Group
Wiltshire Local Plan Consultation (Jan – March 2021)
The consultation to inform the Wiltshire Local Plan review, took place from 13 January to 9 March 2021. At its meeting on the 11th January 2021 the Council resolved to delegate the drafting of a response of the Wiltshire Local Plan Consultation to the NP Review Working Group to be bought back for consideration by the Parish Council at its meeting on 8th March- the draft response is here.
Wiltshire Council Officers are now reviewing all the responses received and will spend some time processing and considering the views provided by communities and stakeholders. The outcomes of this consultation will inform the preparation of the draft Local Plan, which Wiltshire Council will then consult on once again, either at the end of 2021 or early 2022. A consultation report will be published in due course. To view the consultation content, visit the Local Plan Review consultation page.
Note details for Downton, a Local Service Centre, may be found in the ‘Empowering Rural Communities’ section. This includes details of the draft number of houses for development but note this is for a longer period ie to 2036. Also of interest are the Supporting Documents – eg transport, flood etc.
Downton’s Neighbourhood Plan
The actual plan may be found on its dedicated website – http://www.downtonfuture.org/index.html. The issue with the Neighbourhood Plan is:
- Neighbourhood plans which are over 2 years old are considered ‘out of date’ if the policy area does not have a five year housing land supply.
- Wiltshire Council’s policy area now covers the whole of Wiltshire rather than previously being divided into areas. It currently has a housing land supply for 4.7 years
- Wiltshire Council have advised the Council to update its Neighbourhood Plan which would need to go to referendum.
- The process would take between 18 months to 2 years and a Spatial Planning officer for the southern area would be in contact to provide up to date information and data. The Council could apply for a grant for up to £10k and a further grant for up to £8k for technical help via neighbourhoodplanning.org.
Working Group Updates & Recommendations
Please note that minutes of a working group are held by the Lead to ensure compliance with the Council’s Working Group Protocol. The list below are the formal minutes of Parish Council committee where an update on the Working Groups activities was provided. These are sorted by date of the meeting, latest at the top. The files are in Adobe PDF format and so Adobe Reader will be required to view them.
