Issue - meetings

To receive a report by the Head of Development regarding the introduction of a new Neighbourhood and Community Planning Guide.

Approves the Neighbourhood and Community Planning Guide document attached as Appendix A of the Officer’s report.

The Cabinet received a report by the Head of Development (a copy of which is appended in the Minute Book) regarding approval of a Neighbourhood and Community Planning Guide document which clarified how the Council would interact with local communities and Town and Parish Councils if they wished to pursue community planning initiatives.

The purpose of the ‘Neighbourhood and Community Planning Guide’ was to manage the expectations of local communities and to enable the Council to offer a consistent and deliverable level of service to those local communities.

A number of local communities within Huntingdonshire had commenced the development of Neighbourhood Plans.  These included St Neots Town Council, Godmanchester Town Council, Huntingdon Town Council, Bury Parish Council and Houghton and Wyton Parish Council. 

Following a local referendum and once approved a Neighbourhood Plan formed part of the statutory Development Plan for the District, meaning that it was a material consideration with significant weight in the decision making process for planning applications.

It was explained to the Cabinet that the Guide was an evolving document that mainly focused on the Neighbourhood Plan process, as this was the area where most local communities currently wished to engage with the Council.  However, the guide would be amended as required to identify how the Council engaged with local communities on other community planning initiatives and with regard to any future changes in the regulatory framework. 

Other options were available to local communities seeking to achieve different community planning objectives.  These included the ability to promote local affordable housing projects through the ‘rural exceptions’ process; a range of community facilities and amenities (for example, new village halls and playing fields) through the ‘enabled exceptions’ process; and more general Community Action Plans or Parish Plans that focused on specific community needs identified by the communities themselves. 

The Cabinet agreed that Neighbourhood Plans were not appropriate to all Towns and Parish Councils and that other community planning initiatives might be more suitable.  It was important for the Council to enable and provide advice to those local communities that wished to proceed with a community planning initiative.  However, the Council was not responsible for undertaking the work as there should be local ownership. 

In response to concerns expressed, it was explained that the level of interest at any one time from local communities wishing to proceed with a community planning initiative would determine whether the Council had sufficient resource to offer the support. 

The Cabinet was reminded that the Department for Communities and Local Government had made grants of up to £30,000 available to local planning authorities for each Neighbourhood Plan. 

Having considered the comments of the Overview and Scrutiny Panel (Environmental Well-Being) the Cabinet agreed that the Guide needed to clarify that the relevant Town or Parish Council was responsible for producing a clean copy of a Neighbourhood Plan following receipt of the Examiner’s report. Whereupon the Cabinet

RESOLVED

to approve the Neighbourhood and Community Planning Guide document attached as Appendix A of the Officer’s report.