The Examination of the Neighbourhood Plan took place through Thursday 10th November from 10:00 am to 5:00pm. On the Plan page, you will find a link to the YouTube video that was livestreamed at the time.
The Examiner did an excellent job of controlling what was at times a fractious debate between the participants and concluded that the Neighbourhood Plan could not go to Referendum as currently drafted, which we thought would be highly likely. Her report will decide which of the other two options (either it can go forward with edits which she will suggest; or it needs to be completely rewritten) will be her recommendation.
The most active participants at the meeting were:
Organisations that represented landowners/developers whose comments ranged from: The need for “certainty in the Area” before their client could invest in development plans. Or whose requirement was for an “holistic approach” so that land which is presently designated green belt could be included in areas for development. Or who expressed a “lack of detail” within the Plan.
Broxtowe Council’s major concern seemed to centre around the fact that the Neighbourhood Plan Policies would “restrict developers flexibility to create the necessary development” by being “too precise”, particularly where green spaces/corridors should be provided.
On a number of occasions it was apparent that some of the concerns were caused by the fact that the Local Plan Part 2 has separate requirements for Chetwynd Barracks and the Strategic Location for Growth, something that was meant to be resolved by the Strategic Masterplan Supplementary Planning Document (SM-SPD) that Broxtowe had committed to publish following their consultation October 2021 to January 2022. We are still awaiting a changes/modifications document to be produced by the Borough Council detailing the changes made since the consultation version (Oct 2021 version) and the September 2022 version, before it can be adopted by the Council. We believe that there is likely to be a further need for amendment to/review of it, having spotted a number of errors/issues even without a detailed comparison of the two documents. However, a complete changes history will allow a more thorough and transparent process (& possibly further consultation) before the SM-SPD can be finalised and adopted.
Whatever the outcome of the Examiner’s Report, there will be more work to do before the Neighbourhood Plan can be adopted!
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.
