We would like to wish all our members and friends a very happy Easter break. We hope you enjoy the long-awaited sunshine and are able to make the most of it, whatever you are doing this long bank holiday weekend.
Neighbourhood Plan Progress
Or rather lack of progress!! As you know we had hoped that Broxtowe would have commenced the statutory Regulation 16 consultation for our revised Neighbourhood Plan (see the Plan page on our website) by the end of March. The Steering Group (and we are sure all of you are too) extremely frustrated and angry that the Council is holding our Plan up due to “other priorities”!! It is now almost two years since we submitted our original Plan for consultation, and six months since we were required to do likewise with the revised version. Councils have a statutory obligation to support Neighbourhood Forums, but Broxtowe have thrown obstacles in our way at every turn, and we appear to be low on their priority list. It seems we will be lucky to have the consultation out by the end of May or even June!
Enough is enough, and we will this coming week, write formally to the Chief Executive & Head of Planning to complain (yet again!). We will also contact all our elected representatives covering our Area to ask them to intervene, plus the leader of the Council and Locality. We will provide an update in next week’s Digest, and if there is no movement, we will ask you to do likewise to increase the pressure. We will provide all their contact details at that time.
Houses in Multiple Occupation
Broxtowe have opened a consultation on Houses in Multiple Occupation SPD with a closing date of 14th May to respond. The Steering Group generally supports the document, but there are potentially some unintended consequences. The Supplementary Planning Document (SPD) in relation to small HMOs only requires planning permission in parts of Beeston and Beeston Rylands. We believe this should apply to the whole of the Borough to future proof it against the over provision of HMOs elsewhere (including our Area).
We have drafted a response that we will submit soon once finalised, but if you wish to respond you are more than welcome to use this wording as the basis for your own response. Details for how to respond are via the link at the top of this section.
Oban House
The Beeston and District Civic Society have an active petition against the demolition of Oban House in Beeston. Whilst this is outside our Area, it was the location of the Forum office for several years whilst we were working on the development of the Neighbourhood Plan, so it is of more than just passing interest. Whilst it is too late to respond formally to the Council, you may wish to add your name to the petition if you feel strongly about it. Further detail and the Civic Society response to Broxtowe can be found here.
As always please do feel free to ask any questions you may have on this or anything else via the Contact Us page, and we’ll do our best to answer them via the Questions and Answers page.
David, Vice Chair