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Leckhampton with Warden Hill Parish Council Leckhampton with Warden Hill Parish Council Neighbourhood planning group Report to Parish Council meeting, 2 September 2021 First of all, our thanks to the previous chair of the group Cllr Bickerton for all his work on the plan so far over many years. Since the last Parish Council meeting we have achieved a great deal thanks to many people’s par- ticipation and help: • Most importantly the public consultation agreed by the council in January will have begun by the time you meet. The official dates of the consultation are 1 September - 15 October 2021, slightly more than the required six weeks for a Regulation 14 consultation. • A very positive and helpful Neighbourhood Planning group meeting was held on 6 August with five councillors present which discussed the project plan and timetable, consultancy options and plans for the public consultation including the draft public leaflet. • An initial consultancy session was held with GRCC who gave detailed feedback on the timetable, leaflet text, consultation examples from elsewhere and other aspects of the process such as the appointment of the independent examiner. Notes from this will be circulated to the whole NP group. • A project plan and timetable has been created and revised in the light of the NP group meeting, comments from councillors and advice from GRCC. • A consultation plan for the whole consultation period to 15 October was drawn up and amended in the light of councillor’s comments and GRCC advice. This is attached. It proposes two drop-in sessions, one in Warden Hill and one in Leckhampton with display boards and video explaining the idea of the plan and the specific policies and allowing post-it note comments on the day. • The online questionnaire and consultation platform already created has been revised in the light of the NP group discussion, councillor’s comments and GRCC advice. Huge thanks to James for his technical expertise. This should be live by the time you meet. • A public consultation leaflet has been designed and will have been printed by the time you meet (particular thanks to Peter for some remarkable turnaround times) with enough copies for every household in the whole parish, and paid for delivery is taking place to the whole Neighbourhood Plan area to guarantee that everyone in that area is aware of the consultation with at least six weeks to respond. Additional copies are sufficient to be hand delivered to the newer parts of the parish over the next couple of weeks, with a few spare to be left in surgery waiting rooms, handed out at parish council meetings and other events. • For the digitally excluded, hard copies of the whole NP and the survey are being printed and the intention is to make them available at the Cheltenham library, CBC offices and at the two events in the Parish. Residents can also write to the Clerk for a copy. • A budget has been drawn up which is attached. The council previously approved up to £2k for the NP process and we are well within that limit in terms of money already spent or committed to in the consultation process. We request an additional budget of £2,500 to facilitate a fuller con- sultation as proposed in the consultation plan and guided by GRCC. This will enable among other things two public drop-in events one in Warden Hill and one in Leckhampton. We are still ambitious to achieve the final referendum on the plan to coincide with the local elec- tions in May 2022 although we should be realistic that this is now a very ambitious timetable. But it has been important to be ambitious in our timing because: • The start of the consultation means the draft neighbourhood Plan can now be quoted with greater strength as emerging policy, for instance in relation to the planning applications for the ‘northern fields’ by Miller and Kendrick. • As soon as we have a made Neighbourhood Plan after the referendum (assuming it is sup- ported) we will qualify for 25% instead of 15% of any Community Infrastructure Levy money. Given the scale of development coming down the track in Leckhampton, this will be a significant sum. • If the referendum can be held simultaneously with local elections in the NP area, it will save a significant sum of public money. For comparison the stand-alone election just for Warden Hill was estimated at £10,000. The most significant early risk to this ambitious timetable will be if the response to the consulta- tion is either very large or more critical than we expect requiring actual policy revisions which will need to be carefully discussed. We have not allowed a great deal of time for revisions and edits before the next stage of submission to the borough council in the hope that responses will be manageable and largely positive! The decisions we would appreciate from this Parish Council meeting are: 1. Approval of a budget for an additional £2,500. 2. Approval in general terms of the consultation plan, specifically including the two planned events at Warden Hill and Leckhampton, allowing for minor variations in imple- mentation. It would also be helpful if councillors could now promote the consultation via social media and if we could gather volunteers for both hand delivery to the new parish and neighbouring areas of both Warden Hill and Leckhampton over the next couple of weeks and also for staffing the drop- in sessions planned for later in the consultation, perhaps on a two-hourly rota. Thanks again to everyone who has helped in getting all this done. Cllrs Martin Horwood, Graham Beale Co-chairs, Neighbourhood Planning group 30 August 2021 Leckhampton with Warden Hill Parish Council Neighbourhood planning group Reg 14 Consultation plan v2.0 1. Relevant body and designated area • On 15 September 2015, Cheltenham Borough Council recognised Leckhampton with Warden Hill Parish Council as the ‘relevant body’ and the then parish on its pre-2019 boundaries as the designated area for a Neighbourhood Plan. 2. Proposed dates of Reg 14 consultation • 1 September 2021 - midnight 15 October 2021 (minimum 6 weeks + a few days to allow for any late delivery of public flyer) 3. Response options • Online: questionnaire at haveyoursay.cheltenham.gov.uk consultation portal with downloadable pdf copies of the full plan document and paper version of the questionnaire, specific 5 point scale questions and links by each question relating to the relevant text of aims, objectives and specific plus generic and demographic questions and free text boxes, with an explanation and data pro- tection statement • Paper questionnaire: a duplicate of the online questionnaire with the text of the aims, objec- tives, policies etc. and the option to request to read a paper copy of the full plan. If a limited num- ber of paper copies of the full plan are requested from the clerk, these will either be lent or dis- tributed for a small charge covering the cost of printing unless people cannot afford this. • Email: the clerk’s email contact details for comments outside the questionnaire structure essen- tially for the list of key consultees who will be emailed with links to the online consultation from where they can download the full NP for comment. 4. Publicity • Engaging A5 full colour flyer distributed by paid for delivery to every household in the NP area. The leaflet includes: URL of the online questionnaire at haveyoursay.cheltenham.gov.uk QR code for instant connection to the online questionnaire Clerk’s postal and email addresses for people who want to see a paper copy of the NP and/or respond using the paper version of the questionnaire. • Matching A4 poster for Parish and other local noticeboards • Additional print run of A5 flyers for local surgeries, pubs, churches, Co-Ops, small noticeboards etc. also hand delivered by PC to neighbouring areas (eg new parish areas of Leckhampton, Pil- ley, Moorend etc. and non-PC areas of Warden Hill ward). Areas outside the NP area do not necessarily need to be delivered strictly to the 6 week minimum timescale. • Promotion on LwWHPC website homepage • Promotion via social media: LwWHPC Twitter account, councillor’s Facebook pages, Twitter, In- stagram and other social media account Promotion via councillor’s networks, eg political parties & their newsletters, LEGLAG mailing list, community groups etc. will not be the council’s responsibility but would be helpful. 5. Live consultation events Towards the end of the consultation - probably 24 September and/or 1 October - two one-day drop-in Saturday events with refreshments (and maybe entertainment?) staffed by NP group mem- bers and other councillors, with paper questionnaires, posters featuring key maps, policies, aims and objectives, and with bound hard copies of the full plan to read, publicised as soon as venues and dates are confirmed via social media and councillor’s networks and via haveyoursay.chelten- ham.gov.uk. • Warden Hill: venue probably URC (tbc) • Leckhampton: venue probably Leckhampton Primary School (tbc) 6. Key consultees A specific emailed message from the PC chair will go to key consultees with a PDF of the full plan inviting comment by the end of the consultation. The draft list is as follows: Statutory bodies/office-holders: All ward/division parish, borough & county councillors for Leckhampton and Warden Hill Cheltenham Borough Council (planning policy team) Gloucestershire County Council / Gloucestershire Highways Cotswolds AONB Management Board (‘Cotswold National Landscape’) Environment Agency Natural England Gloucestershire Constabulary & OPCC Gloucestershire NHS Clinical Commissioning Group Historic England Educational settings (* = not in the NP area but serve the local community): Leckhampton CofE Primary School Warden Hill Primary School High School Leckhampton/Balcarras Trust/Balcarras Cheltenham Bournside School & Sixth Form Centre* Westfields Day Nursery, Leckhampton Road Nursery Rhymes Day Nursery, Kidnappers Lane Broadlands Pre-School, Burrow’s Field* St.
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