Minutes of Desford Neighbourhood Plan Working Group

Monday 22^nd February 2016 7.30pm at Desford Library

Present: Martyn Randle (Chair), Paul Angelinetta, Pat Crane, David Crocker, Adrian Dickinson, Bernard Grimshaw, Jim Houghton (in part), Ewan Lindsay, Linda Mitchell, Julie Peel, Steve Thorpe, Darren Tilley, Joe Scarratt, Ian Sharpe, Kay Smith, Scott Wakefield

In attendance: John Preston (RCC Leics & Rutland)

1. Apologies: were received and accepted from Pat & Ray Barns, Lyn Dearling, Kaye Johnson, Kate McGregor, Malcolm Peel, Terry Satchwell, Judy Sharpe, Rob Wade.

The chairman announced that one member had resigned, but he did not want people to be put off by the volume of paperwork.  The commitment can be whatever each person is happy and confident with.

2. Minutes of 26.01.16. were signed as a true record
3. Matters Arising: the Market Bosworth questionnaire has not yet been acquired
4. RCC Presentation: John Preston introduced the work of the RCC and said that their expertise is in consultation & engagement, rather than planning, but they do have links with planning consultants. As part of the SLA which HBBC has with the RCC, we may have support from John’s allocated hours, shared with Sheepy parish.  John then talked through the RCC Neighbourhood Plan Toolkit (electronic copy to be circulated).

Area Designation: done

Project Funding: he can give us help with our application for the Locality grant and also suggested Awards for All.

Information & Publicity: he can provide templates for leaflets & posters if required

Evidence Base Portfolio: he can do desktop research and put together a parish profile

Public Open Meeting & Key Issues Consultation: to start exploring what people see as the issues.  Sheepy held 2 drop-in events on different days/times and at different venues.   

Stakeholder Consultation: should follow for businesses, schools, landowners, service providers.  John can collate the findings from these consultation events and provide Reports.  The findings will identify the key issues and form the basis for what policies are needed.

Community Consultation Event: an opportunity to inform people of the findings so far and what priorities are emerging

Survey/Questionnaire: the RCC have samples available and can use SNAP software to generate both online and hard copies of the questionnaire.   John can then process the data and provide a report (unless we have the expertise to do this ourselves)

Issues & Options Workshop: will enable us to decide what policies we want.  It will then be up to us to write them (or get professional help).and produce the Draft Plan

Pre-Submission Consultation: We are obliged to take heed of comments and amend our documents as necessary

Consultation Statement: it is essential to keep a record of all consultations, of whatever form, and the key points that come out of them.  The Examiner will want to see this evidence to support the content of the Plan.

The final stages are the Independent Examination & Referendum

 

Q&A session:

• Funding: it was acknowledged that the fees of planning and design consultants will be considerable. Our main sources of funding will be: the Locality grant (see below), possibly Awards for All, DPC precept plus John’s time under the SLA.  Although the RCC can print flyers, posters etc we may find a local source which is cheaper.
• Are there likely to be bottlenecks as HBBC officers’ time will be stretched. John has not found this to be so, so far, but delays are likely at the Independent Examiner & Referendum stages.  If we want an officer to attend an event/meeting, we will need to give them plenty of advance warning.
• What is the next step? We need to gather information, to create a Project Plan and to work out the cost of the various tasks.

 

5. Funding Officer’s Report: (previously circulated) The Locality grant has to be spent within 6 months, or before the end of the financial year. Up to £9 000 is available to each group, but the application process needs details of the Project Plan for the next 6 months, and the costings for each task.  Darren has downloaded the Locality Project Planner and John can provide the RCC template.  This needs to be filled in before we can proceed with the grant application, which will be after 31^st

Darren is meeting the Parish Clerk to discuss how the finances will be handled.

 

6. Communications Officer’s Report: (previously circulated) Bernard has done a lot of research and concluded that HBBC does not see Desford as having any strategic issues between now and 2026. He cautioned us that the housing numbers are just targets.  Any further applications for development are unlikely to be refused if they can be shown to be sustainable.

Although traffic problems are seen as an issue by residents, the roads are unlikely to be altered.  (The only way to get a relief road might be as part of a scheme for a major housing and/or business development).   Any future expansion of large businesses may exacerbate problems.   Adrian (representing Neovia) informed the meeting that their main customer is putting a new strategy in place to insist that all companies who quote for their haulage work must guarantee that their drivers will use HGV satnavs.

 

We may wish to consider:

• Protection of our open spaces and green wedges
• An exemption site for affordable housing, if this proves to be an issue.

 

Clarification was sought on:

• The housing numbers, which refer to a settlement, rather than the parish
• A number of houses on the outskirts of Kirby Muxloe are in our parish, but they may be counted as part of the Leicester principal urban area.

It was agreed that we need to concentrate our time and energy on what is viable.

7. Terms of Reference: The following additions were put forward and Pat will take them to full Council for approval:

• The Working Group will appoint a chairman, secretary, treasurer and communications officer
• The purpose of the Working Group will be reviewed once the Neighbourhood Plan has been completed and adopted

 

8. Information from other parishes: (previously circulated) documents obtained by David Crocker were acknowledged as being very helpful. We can learn from the experience of others.

 

9. Next steps: Martyn suggested that our next tasks are to draft a Project Plan, identify key partners and create a directory, identify possible sub-groups and plan the Public Open Day (s).

 

Sub-groups were agreed as follows, but other members are welcome:

Project Plan group: to look at the templates and produce a draft Project Plan to bring to the next meeting

Members: Martyn, Bernard, Darren, David, Jim

Open Day group: to plan 2 drop-in events and bring proposals of venues, dates, times and format to the next meeting; to discuss what displays, resources and refreshments are needed: to produce publicity material .  The website will be used and the option of participating electronically.

Everyone will be asked to help with a leaflet drop.

A contact list of key stakeholders needs to be compiled (landowners, businesses, schools, service providers etc) so that all can be invited.

Joe said that not all land is registered with the Land Registry.  HBBC should be able to help identify owners of land in the parish; along with local knowledge.

Members: Pat, Linda, Julie, Steve, Paul, Scott

 

10. AOB

• We need to draw up a schedule of what tasks we would like John Preston to help us with, so that his contract can be agreed
• The Working Group agreed to request DPC:

(i) to authorise the Working Group to work with the RCC in accordance with its 15 step process to produce the plan, initially on a time only-basis as funded by HBBC, and if grant funding becomes available on their usual contract basis, and

 

(ii) to agree to release funds for two initial Drop-in Events and any other publicity expenses, pending the Council’s application for grant funding, now being prepared by the Working Group

 

• If we want John to attend our Open Days, he will need about 2 months notice
• Bernard had received one response to the article in The Graphic, requesting that consideration is given to improved public transport links to Hinckley

 

Date of next meeting:

Project Plan group: Tuesday 1^st March 7.30pm

Open Day group: Thursday 10^th March 6.15pm

Full Working Group: Tuesday 12^th April 7.30pm at the library

 

 

 

Meeting of Desford Neighbourhood Plan Working Group

Tuesday 26^th January 2016

At Desford Library 7.30pm.

 

In Attendance:

                          Pat Crane, Paul Angelinetta, David Crocker, Janet Ireland, Derek Ireland, Kaye Johnson, Julie Peel, Malcolm Peel, Martyn Randle, Steve Thorpe, Darren Tilley, Peter Walker, Bernard Grimshaw.

 

 

1. Apologies.

                        Pat and Ray Barns, Robert Ford, Kate McGregor, Linda Mitchell, Terry Satchwell, Joe Scarratt, Judy Sharpe, Rob Wade, Ian Sharpe, Lyn Dearling.

 

2. Appointment of Chairman.

                        Martyn Randle volunteered to be chairman for the Neighbourhood Plan Working Group (NPWG) and this was accepted by all in attendance.

 

3. Appointment of Minutes Secretary / Treasurer / Communications Officer.

                        Kaye Johnson was asked to be the Minutes Secretary and she agreed,  Darren Tilley was asked to be Treasurer and he agreed, Bernard Grimshaw offered to be Communications Officer and this was agreed by all in attendance. Pat Crane did point out that the Treasurer’s role in this group would be purely to keep accurate records for the group and help with any grant applications as the actual monies would be held by the Parish Council.

 

4. Terms and conditions.

                        Pat Crane apologised as she had come direct from another meeting and didn’t have a copy with her to discuss these.  Pat will email them to all, for individuals to peruse and discuss at the next meeting.

 

5. Vision.

                        Martyn Randle took over as Chair of the meeting and asked all what their long term view is for the parish, adding that perhaps everyone there could email their visions to him.  Market Bosworth, Broughton Astley and Billesdon are all examples to look at on their respective PC web sites.   The questionnaire to go out to all residents within the parish will be asking about the vision for the future, but extreme care must be taken in wording the questionnaire as leading questions can get the plan rejected by the inspectors.   Derek Ireland asked if economic evidence has happened, the answer given was not yet as this will be part of the NPWG evidence gathering and public meetings will hopefully give us the answers.

 

6 Programme of work:

1. Tasks

The main aim within the tasks is to achieve sufficient evidence to write the necessary policies as the group deem necessary for the Neighbourhood Development Plan (NDP).   This includes information from the Hinckley & Bosworth Borough Council (HBBC).   Pat Crane suggested the web site

www.mycommunity.org.uk is a good site to read and follow but the Neighbourhood Plan Roadmap Guide does have 54 pages within. To know what is actually involved and know what each individual can do Bernard Grimshaw offered to check out this document and send an abbreviated version to the Chairman.  Pat also suggested that we need to find out who is our link person from the HBBC to assist the group, again Bernard agreed to do this.

The Rural Community Council (RCC) are a professional organisation funded by their members and charge an hourly rate for assisting rural communities.  The HBBC have said the RCC can be approached through the council for some free hours to assist with the NDP.

It was asked if local companies could be approached to assist with the funding, and whilst there is no hard and fast regulations, credibility might be in question so decided against this.

Some form of contact needs to be made to the local, Doctors, Schools and businesses as well as the local residents.  Market Bosworth when preparing their NDP visited schools and got excellent feedback from the pupils parents.  The RCC can do a presentation for the relevant ages within a school for a fee.

 

 

Page 2: Tasks continued……

 

Caterpillar & Neovia are split over two parishes, part being within Desford and part within Peckleton.  Peckleton do not want Desford to include the area within their NDP boundary.  Pat is to ask who the resources person is at Caterpillar for a contact to liaise with.

To achieve good results it is ideal to keep the residents informed and including the groups details on the Parish Councils web site would help with this.

 

 

1. Resources

                        A locality grant needs to be applied for and could be £8k, the £5k already allocated by the Parish Council should help in obtaining the grant as other money as well as theirs is available.  The group were advised that Broughton Astley had spent between £15k to £16k to complete their plan which was covered by grants and the Parish Council; Market Bosworth spent approx. £15k also but this was completely covered by a grant.

A decision of where the meetings can be held may need to be considered at a later stage; at the moment the group can use the library free of charge, but this may change.

 

1. Timetable

                        Pat advised the average time taken by other areas is two years, but we need to ascertain how long it will take to obtain the grant monies to be able to discuss further.  It will then depend on how many policies and themes need to be included specific to our area.  (Market Bosworth only did 2 policies, a – Character & Environment and b – Building & Development).  It was suggested also that once Bernard has the relative information summarised from the Roadmap Guide we could then split into smaller working groups.

This has been deferred to the next meeting.

 

7. Application for funding from Locality.

                        Darren Tilley will look into this on the group’s behalf and discuss at the next meeting.

 

8./9.  Where do we start and the background work.

                        We need to look at the community as a whole, including schools, shops, employers, farms in our area and prioritise what reports are required.  This to be discussed at the next meeting.

Pat is to ask for a blank copy of Market Bosworth’s questionnaire and hopefully circulate this for us all to read. We can also read Broughton Astley’s on their web page.   Malcolm Peel emphasised however that we must remember each Parish is unique and what is suitable for another area might not be suitable for Desford.

 

 

10. Next meeting

                        Martyn asked if there was any other business to discuss, and as there wasn’t, it was agreed the next meeting to be held on Monday 22 February at 7.30pm at Desford Library.

 

Meeting Closed at 20.55 pm.

 

I confirm this is a true copy of the minutes …………………………………………… (Martyn Randle)

 

……………………………………………  Date.

 

 

                       

 

 

                       

 

 

NDP Meeting  1 December 2015.

7.30 pm.

 

 

Pat Crane was in the chair and welcomed all attendees to this meeting, who were all residents of Desford and Botcheston except for Mr Dickinson who was a representative from Neovia.

 

Pat explained in full details the ideals of the NDP and gave out leaflets for everyone to take home and read.

 

A question was raised has to how binding the plan would be – answer:  It will be a legal document equally considered with the HBBC planning departments which must include the national and local policies.

 

Setting this up will include a lot of ground work, including perhaps questionnaires to be delivered and collected from every household in the area and can easily take 2 years plus to complete.

 

A grant is to be applied for to assist and the PC will assist as well.  An average NDP can be £13 – 14k but can be much more, dependent on how much a consultant is needed to be hired.

 

Sub groups can be set up with answers being taken back to the full meetings.

 

A vote locally will be required for the final plan to be accepted.

 

Pat said this procedure had started in February when the request was sent to the HBBC, but had been delayed for various reasons.  She suggested that all attendees took the information away and the next meeting in January to be the start of the hard work.

 

A question was asked how long the plan stands for, a member of DPC answered that the plan stands as long as legislation doesn’t change, being reviewed perhaps every 5 years.

 

Market Bosworth have a NDP in place and someone is willing to come and talk to the Desford group.

 

Pat emphasized that the plan is not just for residential but includes all aspects of the community, hence the Neovia rep attending.   And that the whole plan is really just using common sense.

 

Pat wound up by saying that the NDP group has to be linked to the PC and pleased to see so many residents here to be able to provide a joint process.

 

Just as Pat thanked everyone for attending again, she gave out forms asking people to complete if they can help and what skills they can provide to assist the group.

 

Meeting closed. 8.10pm