Hartley Wintney Neighbourhood Plan
The purpose of this article is to share with you how your Neighbourhood Plan is progressing and to encourage YOU to give us your feedback. We’ll shortly be asking for your views so look out for our forthcoming questionnaire! Your feedback is particularly important as we need to have the views of as many Hartley Wintney parish residents as possible. In due course YOU will be invited to take part in a Referendum which will help shape how future housing developments will be assessed for the Parish.
The story so far:
Since 2011 communities have had the opportunity to influence local development by producing a Neighbourhood Plan (NP). Once this becomes a statutory document it has to be considered when future planning applications come forward. A volunteer Hartley Wintney NP Group was set up in November 2014 with a remit to develop a long term Vision to 2032 and as part of the process, a call for sites was made. These sites have been assessed on what we have heard from you and a range of criteria to make sure a site is realistically developable. The criteria and resulting site outcomes can be seen on the Neighbourhood Plan website – www.hartleywintneynp.org.uk/. One of the critical parts of the process is to provide evidence to an independent planning assessor that we have spoken to the community and taken on board what they have said in finalising the sites chosen. So far, questionnaires have been issued, four drop in days have been held and two focus groups. There have also been regular progress updates in the Contact Magazine of which this is part.
Note: With the developments at St Mary’s Park and more recently Rifle Range Farm, we believe we have already made a significant contribution to Hart District Council’s potential requirements.
As evidence of the consultation process, we will continue to seek YOUR views on the emerging findings ahead of the Referendum.
This of necessity requires some time and application on your part but really this is a small price to pay for helping to shape the future of the parish for you, your families and future generations.
So, watch this space!
Neighbourhood Plan Steering Group