Hello everyone,
Yes! The Plan has finally landed. It is done, completed, finished and – at long last – published!
We want everyone who lives, works or has any sort of interest in our Area to read, review and comment. It needs to be reviewed by key stakeholders; landowners, statutory authorities (Environment Agency, Natural England etc.), local councils and organisations with an interest in the area (HS2, Wildlife Trusts, schools, voluntary groups etc.).
It is particularly ready for our weekly readers, who have stayed the course and supported the Steering Group through thick and thin for well over 2 years. So… you get to see it first by following the links below.
1. The Plan – a brief introduction
- It is a big document at 83 pages + appendices, however we have included several maps, diagrams and pictures to help break up the text. We are going to see huge changes in our community with development taking several years hence our decision to adopt a strategic, twenty-year timeframe for the Plan. So, no apologies I’m afraid for the size of the Plan – we have to be prepared.
- The document is broken down into 5 sections:
- Section A is the introduction to our Area. There is a brief history of Toton and Chilwell to help set the scene before going on to cover the main geographic characteristics of the area.
- Section B details our Vision and Core Objectives. It explains the huge challenges facing us – the sale of Chetwynd Barracks and the plans for the Strategic Location for Growth zone, which includes the advent of the HS2 East Midlands Hub Station. It reports on the outcomes arising from the Forum’s consultation sessions held throughout the autumn and spring of 2017/2018 which led directly to the formulation of our objectives
- Section C describes the policies we devised to help deliver our objectives. We identified a total of forty-seven policies and provide evidence and justification for each of them. Forty-seven sounds a lot and it may well prove to be too many. But better to prune back from having too many rather than risk omitting something important.
- Section D is exclusively about the Barracks. We want to ensure the community has a strong ‘voice’ in how the Barracks is developed, so we commissioned consultants with experience of other ex-MoD sites being redeveloped to provide specialist advice. The section provides a framework for future development – the key component being the awareness of the much bigger development taking place in our Area and therefore not treating the Barracks as an isolated site in itself.
- Section E contains 4 appendices comprising: i) a glossary, ii) a list of valued assets in our area, iii) how our policies are ‘in compliance’ with council and national policies and regulations, and iv) our evidence base – the wealth of supporting documents that explain and justify our objectives and policies.
- The key sections are B and C our vision, objectives and policies. These are the areas to focus on and provide your comments and suggestions during this consultation phase. After consultation we will then make modifications to the Plan, based on the feedback we receive. We then submit the revised Plan to the council for them to continue along the path to formal adoption.
2. Pre-submission consultation process
- This phase must last for a minimum of 6 weeks. Given we are entering peak holiday season, the Steering Group agreed to extend the period to ensure everyone has plenty of time to respond. Therefore, the closing date of consultation is Friday September 20th – a full 10 weeks from today’s launch.
- However even though we launch this weekend to digest readers, we are not quite ready for the wider community. The Steering Group have agreed the content and layout of the publicity leaflets, and we are now getting quotes from printers. We expect to have leaflets produced in the next week or two and we aim to deliver them to every household by early August.
- We are also obtaining quotes to print booklets of the Plan At the moment we are hoping to print 50-100 copies. These will be circulated to the two libraries in our Area as well as issued to key stakeholders to ensure they have a copy. We are hoping to have a supply for residents to purchase as we recognise domestic printers may not easily cope with a large document containing lots of pictures and diagrams. At this stage we don’t know how much they might cost, but £5-£10 is a ball-park figure. At this price are you interested in buying a copy? If so let me know and I’ll collate a list.
- We also agreed to organise 3 consultation sessions to take place in early September to give people the chance to come along and ask questions. In addition, we hope to host some drop-in sessions at our office in Beeston as well as some ad hoc pop-up stalls at key locations such as Toton Tesco and Chilwell Local Sainsbury’s. More on that in the coming weeks.
- But don’t wait until September for your questions. If you have any queries, send me an email and I’ll get an answer to you asap.
3. Next Steps. Some ‘asks’ of you….
- Please read the Plan and here is a link to the document. Let us know what you think. We need your views – all views – on the contents, the more feedback the better. There is no need to rush, you have until Sept 20th to complete a Response form & here is a link to the form.
- Please spread the word of the Plan widely to friends and neighbours. It is fantastic to note that over 1,000 people receive the digest each time, but there are many, many more residents in our Area who don’t get these updates.
- Please forward this email (or just send my email address) to all your contacts who live/work or who are just interested in the Area. Persuade them to get involved.
- Development of the Area affects us all so, this Plan simply must be for all of us, not just our regular readers.
- We are looking for volunteers again to help deliver our leaflets to every household in the Area. Are you willing to help? Each ‘walk’ is designed to take approx. 1 hour so if you can spare a couple of hours to help it will be much appreciated. We expect the leaflets to be ready from Monday 29th We had a wonderful response the last time we asked for help so it will be great if even more people are able to stick up a hand this time. Please get in touch with details where you live, and I’ll arrange a walk nearby.
The publication of the Plan is a significant milestone for us in the Forum. It represents the culmination of a lot of hard work (over a long time) by a lot of people both on the Steering Group and beyond. I’ll take time next week to ‘name check’ these people as they deserve to be recognised for their contribution. We are all pleased with the document, it is strong and covers all the bases. We hope you will be pleased too!
Kind regards
Graham
Broxtowe Lotto: tickets available from our CTTC Forum page where you’ll find details of the scheme.