Neighbourhood Planning - the story so far
The backstory
During 2014, the Parish Council was advised that Medbourne has been designated a Selected Rural Village in the Core Strategy for Harborough District Council, which means that Medbourne should accommodate some development and contribute to HDC’s housing stock by the building of approximately 50 houses in the period up to 2031. The final housing allocation will be determined by HDC’s Local Plan, which was originally expected to be finalised and adopted during 2016 but is now scheduled for 2017 (http://www.harborough.gov.uk/local-plan).
With the objective of gauging the level of interest for developing a Neighbourhood Plan, that could empower the community to influence this housing development, Medbourne Parish Council sent a questionnaire to all village residents in November 2014.
There was a commendably high response with two-thirds of the questionnaires being returned and 60% in favour of a Neighbourhood Plan. So, at their February 2015 meeting, the Parish Council resolved to progress a Neighbourhood Plan and to apply for the whole of Medbourne Parish to be included in the designated area.
Matthew Bills (the officer responsible for Neighbourhood Planning at HDC) was invited to address the MPC meeting of 2nd March 2015, which was well attended by the public. This event provided further detailed information and answered questions on the Neighbourhood Planning process.
The July 2015 Parish Council meeting approved the terms of reference for a Neighbourhood Planning Committee and appointed ten Medbourne residents (from those who had volunteered) along with two parish councillors to serve on the committee.
MNPAC progress
The MNPAC inaugural meeting was held on 28th August 2015.
The committee got straight to work with putting in place the necessary procedures and setting up the infrastructure to progress the work of developing a Neighbourhood Plan:
- Formulating a project plan for MNPAC to drive the Neighbourhood Plan to completion by the summer of 2017 - the tasks and steps involved being identified and programmed to the timescale.
- Identification of potential sources of funding that could be accessed by MNPAC. (An application for a £2,000 grant from the HDC Community Grant Fund was made in October 2015 - but unfortunately was not successful).
- Conducting further in-depth analysis of the November 2014 Questionnaire. This work was completed in November 2015 and is published on the documents page.
- Identifying stakeholders – using local knowledge to identify owners of land within the designated area and arranging access to the electoral register.
- Researching and compiling a comprehensive database of documents relevant to Neighbourhood Planning including guidance and help-sheets as well as factual documents to form the evidence base for the Plan.
- Community engagement activities including publicising the HDC Local Plan “Options Consultation Paper (Sept 2015)” and encouraging Medbourne residents to submit their comments to HDC before the deadline (30th October 2015).
- Devising a logo and organising and implementing a website presence specifically for Medbourne’s Neighbourhood Plan (the pages on this site!).
- Arranging presentations and proposals from consultants that could be engaged to assist MNPAC with the work. This meant following formal procurement processes in conformance with local government transparency rules and MPC policy - and resulted in a preferred consultant being selected.
In April 2016, the Parish Council approved the appointment of consultants “Your Locale” as recommended by the committee. Your Locale director Gary Kirk has attended MNPAC monthly meetings since then and is helping drive forward the current work which entails:
- Applying for and securing funding to pay for consultant involvement in delivering Medbourne’s Neighbourhood Plan (an initial “Locality” grant of £4,925 was obtained in May).
- Developing a Vision for the Medbourne Neighbourhood Plan.
- Organising the first community engagement event (held on Saturday 18th June 2016).
- Setting up Theme Groups to tackle the various topics that will be addressed in Medbourne’s Neighbourhood Plan.
The first community engagement, organised as an informal drop-in event, was held on Saturday June 18th in Medbourne Village Hall. The event was widely publicised on the village notice boards, website and by a leaflet which was hand delivered to every address in the village. This resulted in a strong turnout with a total of 50 Medbourne residents attending. A report summarising the event and analysing the findings has been published and is available on the documents page.
"Theme Groups" have been set up to explore the detail of three major themes that will feed into the Medbourne Neighbourhood Plan:
- Housing
- Environment & Heritage
- Community, Economy & Transport
Each group is supported by a facilitator from YourLocale and comprises committee members together with other volunteers from the community who have particular knowledge of or interest in the theme topic. Their role is to inform the MNPAC and collate evidence for the policies to be included in the plan. A launch event for the Theme Groups was held on 21st September 2016 in the Village Hall. The work of the groups is expected to take 3-4 months with progress being reported to the MNPAC at their monthly meetings.