30/01/2019
The Parish Council are the first government port of call for the village community and our statutory requirements are typically to maintain bus shelters, allotments, playing fields and the cemetery. But, as some of you may be aware that the Cholsey Parish Council does much more than that. I joined the Parish Council approximately 4 years ago, and I am fully aware of the amount of discussion that surrounds planning. Every two weeks members of the council review all local planning applications for new buildings, extensions and alterations to people’s homes. However, our ability to affect change and control the development in our village is very limited as planning for this resides with our District Council (SOCC). At the same time of joining the council, South Oxfordshire District Council (SODC) was announcing that they were embracing Neighbourhood Planning that allowed Parishes like ours to define how we grew over the next 15 years.
After some discussion with my fellow councillors and chairman, there was reluctance for the council to undertake a Neighbourhood Plan project due to concerns regarding the length of time the plan would take to complete (between 3 to 4 years), and the financial burden to the village (it was rumoured that Thame had invested, £100,000 and Woodcote over £30,000). In fact, the Cholsey Neighbourhood Plan has not cost the village a single penny, as all costs have been paid for by grants obtained from Locality and SODC.
However, in April 2016, I held a public meeting at the Pavilion to ask residents if they believed that we should have a Neighbourhood Plan and if any members of the community would be willing to support it. Some residents pointed out that we already had a community plan from 2007 and asked what the difference was. Many pointed out their frustrations within the village, for example: schooling, roads and the number of homes that we had already from the Fairmile development. The overall feedback from the 150+ attendees was “Yes, having a plan would be a good thing”, and some were willing to volunteer into the task. Therefore, I agreed to become Chair and lead the steering group of the Cholsey Neighbourhood Plan.
If we fast forward the 1000 or so days since that meeting, we are finally in sight of having a Neighbourhood Plan for the village. Over these past 33 months, we have:
• had over 25 public meetings culminating in more than 20,000 pieces of data (evidence),
• held a village-wide survey on our needs for today and the future
• had three sustainable environmental and three landscape surveys from independent consultants.
All this evidence and research has come together to form and shape the Cholsey Neighbourhood Plan into what it is today.
Our evidence led Plan and work has been completed by a small bunch of committed volunteers. We have produced 26 documents (223,624 words) that range from detailed analysis of environmental impacts, pictures and locations of resident’s favourite views and even down to where a bus stop should be placed. In addition, we have feedback concerning the money that the village receives from housing developers and where this is to be spent within the community. In fact, by having a Neighbourhood Plan, the community will benefit with additional 10% to the Community Infrastructure Levy (CIL money) from the standard 15% to 25%. In monetary terms this means that the community could receive an extra £150,000, just by having a Plan. Some of the key projects you identified are:
• a pedestrian crossing on the A329
• improved accessibility to the Forty
• safer school journeys for both children and parents
After we submitted our final plan, following the last public consultation last Summer, we had the Public Hearing. If you attended, thank you. The Public Hearing was a huge learning curve for all involved. With the help of Ricardo Rios (Senior Neighbourhood Planning Officer from SODC) both Beryl Guvier (our vice-chair) and I were prepared and ready for everything. We brought every document created that formed the Plan, which was some 1066 combined pages.
All interested developers attended the hearing, along with our Independent Examiner, Andrew Ashcroft, who chaired the meeting. Andrew has experience with this region and has examined several local plans, for example, Watlington and Benson.
Once the hearing concluded the Cholsey Neighbourhood Plan committee and other participants were required to submit a number of clarifications. The purpose of this was to enable Andrew to make his final judgement with all the necessary information to hand. One key part of the Neighbourhood Plan was the fact that it was changed after the first public consultation and the Public Hearing enabled us to defend this decision: We live in sustainable village and the revised plan prevented development that the Leavesley Group wanted to build: some 350 homes, plus 200 C1/2 units. This would be of a similar size to the development currently underway on the Wallingford bypass and one of this size would not be acceptable, nor could it be sustainable for Cholsey village.
Thankfully, Andrew has agreed to support our final Plan, including several of the difficult elements, one of which was the built-up boundary. He approves of the pledges, along with the many areas in which we have engaged with the community, and our prioritised CIL plans. Therefore, he has recommended that we proceed with the next stage which is the Referendum!
The Referendum is expected to take place on 14 March 2019. In the meantime, there will be a number of events during February so that you have the opportunity to see your final Neighbourhood Plan. Please keep an eye out for banners, posters, Facebook posts, plus our website for the dates.
www.cholsey-plan.com
Paul Ramsay
Chair – Neighbourhood Plan
Vice Chair – Cholsey Parish Council
