We’ve had another week attending meetings – outcomes covered below. A key meeting was with the Head of Planning at Broxtowe Council. We have already met on a number of occasions but we agreed today to set time aside each month to get together to discuss progress and issues with our Neighbourhood Plan. The relationship with the council will prove crucial to ensure we develop a strong, robust Plan. So far, things are going very well and we intend to fully play our part in developing a strong partnership between us. Having said that, we are realistic enough to know we will likely have divergent views on some matters in the future. But, with good faith on both sides, we are confident we will reach positive solutions for both the council and, more importantly, for the residents in our area.
- Local Plan part 2: get ready for consultation
- The main discussion point today in our Council meeting was the Local Plan part 2. This document is ready for final sign-off within the council and the intention is to publish it in mid-September for formal consultation
- The Local Plan part 2 – once approved – sets the framework and policies for development in the Borough up to 2028. As such, it is vital we play a full part in providing feedback on those parts directly impacting our Area. We have seen an early draft (reviewed at committee in the summer) and, as you might expect, there is a lot for us to consider
- Consultation will last for 6 weeks, perhaps a tad longer, and we intend to produce an in-depth, comprehensive response on behalf of the Forum.
- We will discuss our approach to the consultation process at Steering Group but we anticipate holding 2 or 3 public consultation events during October to explain the impact on our Area & gather residents views as prime input to our feedback.
More on this in the coming weeks.
- HS2 Growth Strategy
- Another item discussed with the council was the imminent release of the HS2 Growth Strategy. This is undergoing final review by stakeholders (all the councils) before being published on Sept 22nd
- This document will provide more detail (hopefully) on the ideas being taken forward to government on how best to exploit the advent of the HS2 station.
- We circulated Broxtowe Council’s initial thoughts on this a couple of weeks ago in Digest #3. We don’t believe there will be any major surprises but, even so, this is another critical document we’ll need to review and reflect in our ideas and thoughts for the Area.
- The strategy is not being presented for formal consultation but naturally we will be keen to gather residents views on the content
- Nottingham University meeting: ‘Developing visions’
- We also met with Nottingham University on Thursday to discuss how best they can help us develop emerging ideas and thoughts. The meeting was very positive and the intention is for the University to allocate up to 50 post-graduate students (split into 2 groups) to undertake ‘visioning’ work for our 2 key areas: HS2 Growth Area and the Barracks.
- Part of their work will involve undertaking community consultation so clearly we need to ensure we complement (not duplicate) the workplan being discussed with our RCAN consultant.
- The plan is to produce a number of ‘visions’ for our area – including, hopefully, a 3D model – next Spring which we can then present at public meetings for views and comments
- After that we should be able to produce a final, exciting and inspiring vision that we can adopt and use as the foundation for our overall Plan.
- So expect a busy time over the next 6 months as we ask you to get involved and give us your thoughts and ideas on how Toton and Chilwell should look over the next 20-30 years.
- Steering Group: next meetings
- The Steering Group will be holding a meeting next Monday 4th at 7pm at the Corn Mill. We normally hold meetings each month, although we didn’t have one in August due to peak holiday period
- The Barracks sub-group is also resuming their monthly meetings the following week
- If you have any specific queries you’d like to be discussed at either of these meetings, please get in touch and I’ll make sure they are raised as appropriate
- We hope to arrange a more ‘formal’ location for Steering Group meetings (we now have funding to pay for room hires) so that we can invite members along to observe. Again, more on this in future editions.
And ‘that’s all folks’ for this week.