Parish Plan

Planning for the future of our village

County Councils produce a Structure Plan and District Councils produce a Local Plan, setting out policies for development and services in the region. These are based on detailed public consultation.

By producing a Parish Plan, the Parish Council and other organisations will be able to back up requests for action from other authorities by reference to the results of the detailed consulation on which the plan is based. In addition, the process has aimed to identify the key areas in which people would like things to happen, and it is hoped that in doing so it will in itself get the ball rolling by getting people to talk about their ideas. In this way it has been as much about stimulating community involvement as about consultation.

The Parish Plan process was funded by a grant from the Countryside Agency and work started in September 2003.

An initial survey of ideas was completed first and this identified six key areas for an exhibition in February 2004. The exhibition was designed to stimulate new ideas, expression of opinion and discussion on all aspects of the life, services and the environment of the village.

The results of the consultation from the initial survey and exhibition were used as the basis for a detailed questionnaire, which was circulated to every member of the village.

The things that people wrote in this detailed consultation questionnaire then fed directly into the formal Parish Plan document which is to be used in the coming years. This is expected to carry significant weight, since it is backed by a credible assessment of public opinion.

The parish plan is now complete and is available for electronic download. A summary is now being distributed within the village and paper copies of the full plan are freely available.

The content of the Parish Plan is entirely driven by information collected during the consultation exercise and is not necessarily representative of the views of either individual members of the Parish Council or the Parish Plan committee who have aimed simply to facilitate its production to reflect village views.