Update meeting: 7pm, Tuesday 14 October, Seahouses Sports and Community Centre

The Steering Group has been active since the launch event and has:

•      held conversations with local people and businesses to establish the main issues to be tackled; compared the changes in the census results of 2001 and 2011  to try and predict future trends; looked at other parts of the country with similar challenges to see what policies they have developed.

The Group is working closely with the County Council, who are providing technical and practical support to help us develop the plan.  The County Council is currently preparing a new Local Plan for Northumberland and we are working to ensure that the Local Plan will support the things that are important to us such as:

•      development is in an acceptable style; that we have a proper balance of second and holiday homes; and  that we can encourage business. 

We have developed a questionnaire survey to collect evidence required to support the policies and proposals likely to form part of the Neighbourhood Plan.   We would like to invite you to attend a consultation event and to complete the questionnaire survey which will be delivered to all houses in the parishes. The questionnaire survey will include questions about the following matters:

Your views on the vision and objectives for the Plan, a housing needs survey and a survey for second home owners.

 We are launching this on Tuesday 14 October at 7pm at the Seahouses Sports and Community Centre:

-         To tell you what we’ve done so far and answer questions;

-         To explain the survey;

-         To hear the experience of the Alnwick and Denwick group, who are about 2 years ahead of us. 

 

The availability of social housing is important in this area. We are therefore also arranging a drop in at the Methodist Church Hall on Wednesday 22 October, from 3pm to 6pm to explain how Homefinder, the County’s housing allocation system works.  

 

Logo

Seahouses First School helped us develope a logo for the neighbourhood plan. We asked them to design something to reflect the the three communities.

The children produced some excellent designs and it was with great difficulty that we chose one -
Congratulations Chloe.

As part of the work, they also produced a Kid's Guide to Seahouses - which is now on the Vsit Northumberland web site.

Thank you..

Housing Survey: The You Tube Diaries

During summer we will be preparing a housing survey to get a good understanding of people's needs.

One of the factors we'll be considering is the work done by the Development Trust in 2007 on affordable housing: the work and some of the issues were presented on video which can be found here on youtube.

They are an interesting snapshot of the problems faced at that time - problems which remain much the same now!

Business Survey

One of the important issues raised during the first phase of consultation was the question of supporting business and the need for more - and a greater variety of - employment.

We are therefore carrying out a survey of businesses to try to establish what issues they have in the area to identify where planning and development policies could help and what infrastructure or other needs they have. And also what works well.

Each of the businesses in the three villages has or will be given a survey, which can also be completed on line. We are issuing the following press release to explain a bit more; we will be writing separately to owners of holiday homes which are let to establish their views.

March 2014

CALLING ALL LOCAL BUSINESSES

The North Northumberland Coastal Area Neighbourhood Plan Steering Committee has been working hard to engage with local businesses.  As part of its activities to produce the Neighbourhood Plan, a Business Needs Survey was recently distributed amongst organisations in the three villages of Bamburgh, Beadnell and Seahouses. 

The survey seeks to determine what the positive aspects of the local area are for businesses, as well as find out what negative aspects are perceived.  It also seeks views on the changing nature of businesses and aspirations for future business needs.  Collecting this information will help to develop policies in the plan which balance the needs of the business community as well as local residents, with sustainability underpinning everything that the plan will seek to achieve.

We are keen to reach all areas of the business community and are now calling on all businesses who may not have received a Business Needs Survey to assist us in providing their views.  To facilitate this more copies of the survey have been made available at the Seahouses Resource Centre, Main Street, Seahouses.  Please call in to the Resource Centre and pick up a copy so that you too can help to shape the local area to meet the needs of your business for the future.

Launch events

We had a formal launch of the neighbourhood plan at Seahouses Sports and Community Centre on Tuesday 22 January, followed by three drop in events at Seahouses, Bamburgh and Beadnell later in the week. Over 200 people - about 10% of the residents of the three villages - attended at least one of these events.

The general consensus from questions and discussions was that people were interested to see the community have a bigger say in the planning framework, although there was some cynicism about how effective it would really be.

There was a series of displays of information about the area and the neighbourhood planning process followed by an opportunity for people to give feedback on what they liked and what could be improved about the area. This was to give us a basis for deciding on the main themes for the neighbourhood plan. A summary is shown:

The steering commitee will be considering this, and all the other feedback and offers of help, at a meeting at the end of January to decide how to take things forward - but it is clear, and not surprising, that housing development and employment issues were seen as the most important.

Introduction

The three parishes of Bamburgh, Beadnell and N Sunderland have decided to prepare a neighbourhood plan.

This area has faced significant development pressure in the past and will continue to do so in the future. It’s an area where people want to come to visit and to live.  Development isn’t a bad thing: people need houses – especially houses they can afford to live in. Businesses need people. We all need visitors. But the mix, the style, the location, the constraints are things that should be set locally. Hence a neighbourhood plan.

What is a neighbourhood plan?

The introduction of neighbourhood planning is part of wider changes to the planning system in the Localism Act 2011. The Act aims to shift decision making from central government to communities and councils. Neighbourhood planning allows parish councils to prepare a plan for their area, in close consultation with residents, businesses and other local organisations.

They will be able to:

• Define where they want new homes, shops and offices to be built
• Have their say on what those new buildings should look like
• Establish planning policies for the development and use of land

These statements and policies will be drawn together into a neighbourhood plan which will, after being checked and confirmed in a local referendum, become a legal document that is part of the planning framework.

The development of the plan will be supported by Northumberland County Council as the local planning authority.

What will happen?

The Neighbourhood Plan will be developed by the members of the three parishes – people who live here, work here, go to school here, shop here or have social connections. They know the community best and can help in identifying sites which would be suitable for housing, business or other forms of community-related development which will shape the long term future.

The Plan is important for everyone because, if a vote at a referendum is successful, it will be a legal document and decisions on planning applications will be required to be made in accordance with your Neighbourhood Plan.

How will we organise it?

A pre-meeting primarily of parish councillors took place in mid October to confirm the approach and to agree the formation of a small Steering Group. This will initially be drawn from the Parish Councils and the County Councillor and will lead the efforts and ensure that the correct procedural matters are followed by the community. The first task, apart from legal formalities, will be to organise a launch event early in 2014.

There will be opportunities now, and over the coming months for you to engage and contribute to the Plan so please get involved as this is an important opportunity for everyone to help shape your community.

 

If you have any comments or questions about the Neighbourhood Plan please send them to coastalnplan@gmail.com, or contact anyone on the parish councils or John Woodman, our County Councillor.

Background information

As background, you may like to look at:

-          The draft Allendale plan, Allendale being one of the pilots in Northumberland;

-          The web site of the Lyn and Lynton plan (now almost complete), a coastal area in Devon with similar issues to ourselves. In particular, they have dealt with affordable housing question.

-          A paper on early lessons learned