WINCHFIELD PARISH COUNCIL NEIGHBOURHOOD PLAN STEERING COMMITTEE

Public Engagement Session Held at Winchfield Village Hall on Sunday 18th October 2015 - 2pm start

The meeting was attended by 48 residents.

1 Clare Worley (Chair of Steering Committee) introduced the draft NDP – this is the first time a printed copy has been available since the process started nearly 18 months ago. Clare explained the process from here, public consultation, pre-submission statement and the legal requirements before the plan goes to final inspection.

2. Everyone was requested to review the objectives and policies and indicate whether the NDP Steering Group has accurately reflected the wishes of the residents.

3. Clare briefly explained the methodology for suggesting the number of houses Winchfield might anticipate approving over the HDC Plan period (until 2032). This would, if accepted by HDC and the Plan inspector result in around 50 houses in total. It is still unclear whether Winchfield must submit sites or whether just site criteria will be acceptable. We currently do not plan to. has been told just criteria but every village is different and HDC have not committed, although asked several times, what they expect from Winchfield. If we have to submit specific sites there are additional environmental assessments to be done and these will result in a delay and additional costs.

4. , one of our neighbouring villages has just submitted their pre-submission plan, they are about three weeks ahead of us in the process but this is good as we can benefit from their experience. The Odiham consultation will close on 30th November. Unlike our NDP Odiham engaged a consultant to write the plan. And it does select sites. Six villages from within Hart, all of whom are in the process of writing their NDPs, meet regularly to share information and several of them have developed very similar policies to ours, particularly with regards to concerns over coalescence (merging of villages or villages to towns)

5. Clare gave a quick overview of the referendum process. Additional request: We still need information on cycling / walking / fishing and bird activity so if anyone can assist with contacts for these recreational activities we would be grateful.

6. Andrew Renshaw (Chairman of Winchfield Parish Council and Ward Councillor for HDC) thanked Clare and the NDPSG for their hard work. Andrew briefed the audience on recent meetings with HDC, the status of the Local Plan, site assessment work and the announcement that each Parish Council will be asked to review and rank all SHLAA (Strategic Housing Land Availability Assessment) sites in their Parish.

HDC have also announced that there will be a second public consultation, starting in December for 6 working weeks, on housing development options; all sites will be included even if they have been previously discounted from the SHLAA. Four major sites are still being considered for a new settlement option, Grove Farm () Pale Lane (Fleet) Land West of Hook (Hook) and Winchfield.

Andrew anticipates that a special meeting will be called by HDC in the second half of November to approve the Options Paper. WINCHFIELD PARISH COUNCIL NEIGHBOURHOOD PLAN STEERING COMMITTEE

David Turver’s excellent analysis work on the required housing number HDC had previously issued has now been validated by a government announcement last week that employment numbers are lower than previously stated, this results in a lower number of houses required; David will again be assessing HDC numbers in light of the Government statement.

Another Government announcement last week has enforced as permanent the change in ‘permitted development rights’ whereby commercial property can be redeveloped as residential without planning permission, in fact the change now allows for demolition and re-use of the site which is even more encouraging and it is hope this will encourage developers to positively will respond. The use of brownfield sites is very good news to reduce the pressure on green field sites.

Ranil Jayawardena, MP for NE , has come out very strongly in favour of using brownfield sites and has a petition at www.tellranil.com. (click on ‘campaigns’ then ‘petitions’)

7. Andrew briefly mentioned that Winchfield PC meetings will be more regular to support the HDC Local Plan process, now every 2 months.

8 Q and A.

Following the briefing everyone was encouraged to review and comment on the draft NDP and policies. This resulted in unanimous endorsement of the Vision, Objectives and Draft Policies. A handful of comments offered for edits were taken away for incorporation into wording.

Meeting closed at 3.30pm