Sutton Benger

The Neighbourhood Plan will cover the whole of the Parish area, including the hamlet of Draycot Cerne and properties and businesses not in the main village itself. The Plan has been sponsored by the Parish Council but will be produced by a group of community volunteers, with participation by some councillors and continual liaison with the Parish Council. This approach will enable greater community participation without adding to the burden of the continuing responsibilities of the Parish Council.

Members from all parts of the parish will be invited to join the initial team that has taken the initiative to produce the Neighbourhood Plan. Sutton Benger is an active community and we anticipate a high degree of participation from parishioners within the village and surrounding areas. The neighbourhood plan should look to guiding development and ensure it is carried out in a sensitive way taking account of Sutton Benger’s existing and historic character.

All homes and businesses within the parish will be included in the consultation. The Parish of Sutton Benger has the M4 as its northern boundary, in common with the Parish. Clockwise, Sutton Benger shares boundaries with (where the River Avon defines most of the boundary), with also to the east, Langley Burrell to the south, and to the west.

The Parish of Sutton Benger has a thriving primary school, a village hall that supports many community activities, a hotel with a cafe and post office, a restaurant and a pub and a doctors’ surgery. There is no village shop. There are a number of small businesses within the main part of the village, including a number of home-based businesses. There are larger business units along the B4122 including the Pit Stop service station and most of the site of the ‘’ recycling centre. There are significant agricultural and horticultural business operations around the village.

Sutton Benger is designated as a 'Large Village' in the Core Strategy and as such has an obligation to identify sites for housing development over the next planning cycle. Already the former Chicken Factory site in Sutton Benger has been redeveloped as “The Park” and provides significant additional housing. There is also ongoing development at Hazelwood Farm. The new employment opportunities on the former Chicken Factory are currently uncertain.

The Neighbourhood plan will include details of the existing community demographics (including the recent and ongoing increase in population due to housing developments mentioned above), business activities, transport and broadband infrastructure services, rural services together with existing community historic and SSI assets. The plan will seek to include provisions for housing, local business and the use of the large areas of agricultural land within the plan area, while retaining a balanced, sustainable, and sympathetic to retaining the existing character of this Wiltshire rural village community.