Hello again,
Last week I headlined a section saying the ‘Plan was landing’ and that the next edition would prove to be a ‘momentous moment’ when we published the Plan. Well, to further stretch the aircraft metaphor, I’m afraid our Plan has been held up in a ‘stack’ and is currently circling the airfield. We hope to finally guide it down in a couple of weeks – more below.
In the meantime, this edition does provide a ‘momentous moment’ of sorts as it is our 75th edition! We started the digest pretty much 2 years ago (early July 2017) and I little imagined I’d still be providing these updates. I’d assumed we would have finished the Plan well before now but – hey ho – it just goes to show how much time and effort is needed to produce a worthwhile Plan designed to stand the test of time. So, here’s to the next 75 editions, although I’ve no idea what I’ll be rabbiting on about then…..
1. Can’t keep my eyes from the circling sky…
- The reason we’ve delayed publication is that we have realised – a tad late in the day – that when the document is printed, the colour scheme is not rendered accurately, and a number of diagrams look distinctly fuzzy and unfocussed.
- This is something I should have checked before trumpeting last week about publication. I’d assumed the old adage ‘what you see is what you get’ would apply to the Plan. However, when I look at what is (I think) a very tasteful sage green colour on screen, what gets printed out is a dark’ish blue colour.
- We have asked the printer for a full copy of the Plan (from a decent printer) and we will go through it again to see if corrections are needed. I’m less troubled by the colour scheme (all printers are different) – as long as the text is easily readable – but the fuzzy diagrams may result in some changes to the layout if they need to be re-sized/re-located to be easily read and understood.
- We are hoping this will only be a short delay. We are now aiming for a mid-July publication but I’m reluctant to tell you this in case I’m setting myself up for another ‘fall’.
2. Local Plan Main Modifications Consultation
- As reported last week, we have now been through the Council’s Main Modifications proposals and drafted up our response. Overall, we are pleased with these changes; the Council has clearly listened to our representations made last winter and have incorporated our key ‘asks’ – most notably the need to produce an overarching Strategic Masterplan for the whole area.
- This Strategic Masterplan is vital – it provides the key to ensuring a coherent vision for the development of our area. In addition, we are explicitly included as a member of the group tasked with providing input to the masterplan. [In fact, as previously reported, we have already held our first meeting with the consultants.]
- As a result, we don’t believe we need to arrange separate consultations with you to discuss our response. If you strongly disagree with our conclusions, please feel free to get in touch so we can have a chat to understand your concerns.
- Here are some links for you if you’d like to have a look at our response and some background material to it:
- This document is a draft of our response to the Council. [The draft is subject to endorsement by the Steering Group planned to take place next week.]
- This document contains extracts of the Modifications document as it pertains to our Area i.e. Policy 3.1 Chetwynd Barracks and Policy 3.2 Toton Strategic Location for Growth. I’ve extracted the bits that we either requested directly to see included or else the changes added that we strongly support.
- This document is the Main Modifications document as published by the Council, so you assess the source material.
- This document is the feedback form in case you would like to submit your own individual response to the Council. The consultation closes on Tuesday July 9th, so you don’t have long.
3. And finally….
- Meeting the councillors. We had a very useful meeting with senior councillors of the J&E committee last week. It was good to speak to Cllrs Pat and Lynda Lally and Cllr Richard MacRae and introduce them to our Neighbourhood Plan. They were very supportive of the work we’ve done thus far and our ambitions for the Area. They reported there are changes afoot in the make-up of the J&E committee following the result of the Stapleford by-election. Furthermore, they advised us to invite the leader of the council, Cllr Milan Radulovic, to Oban House so we can appraise him of our Plan. We have followed up on this advice and extended the invitation to the deputy leader, Cllr Steve Carr, as well as the new chair of the J&E, Cllr Tim Hallam.
- A snippet from the Birmingham Post. You may be interested to read that Ashfield Council are commissioning a report to assess the viability of re-opening and upgrading a freight-only line to allow passenger trains to run between Kirkby-in-Ashfield, Selston, Ilkeston and the HS2 station at Toton.
And that’s all folks for now. More next time.
Kind regards
Graham
Broxtowe Lotto: tickets available from our CTTC Forum page where you’ll find details of the scheme.