Wiltshire Council and Wiltshire’s MPs ‘declined the opportunity to meet the 30 town and parish councils seeking a joint effort to develop a shared and public plan to protect Neighbourhood Planning in Wiltshire.
The meeting was set for Friday, February 26, but a letter to the councils from Wiltshire Council leader Philip Whitehead and Chief Executive Terence Herbert, confirmed Wiltshire Council’s views: ”Greater clarity needs to be given to communities in the guidance about what Neighbourhood Plans can and can’t influence;
The current anomaly regarding the weight given to those over two years old in decision making must be urgently addressed;
The process of updating Neighbourhood Plans should be simplified or they should be extended to run over a longer time span, in line with the Wiltshire Local Plan;
The current situation where neighbourhood plans are being made increasing less valid over time and requiring frequent updating with all the effort that entails it not functional; and neighbourhood plans need to be linked more directly into the duration of the Wiltshire Local Plan.”
Wiltshire Council offered meetings with the town and parish councils at ‘sometime in the future’ but wanted to wait until the government had responded to the consultation on proposed long-term changes to the national planning system before considering its own next steps.
Speaking on behalf of the councils, Campbell Ritchie, Mayor of Malmesbury said: ‘’Our single point of disagreement with Wiltshire Council, and the Wiltshire MPs who have responded in similar vein, is that they wish to wait for the government to respond to its ‘Future of Planning’ White Paper proposals before considering its own next steps.
“Unfortunately, the implementation of the proposals in the consultation are at least three years away. The damage being done to Wiltshire’s Neighbourhood Plans is happening now. There is already a long list of live and likely planning applications across Wiltshire seeking to make full use of the continuing shortfall in the five-year land supply in Wiltshire. Until action is taken current Neighbourhood Plans and the efforts to update the Wiltshire Local Plan will continue being wrecked.”
Cllr Ritchie added: “With the current Local Plan consultation underway, it has also become clear that the Government’s formula for calculating Wiltshire’s housing numbers (the “Standard Method”) is considerably out of date, and is set to undermine Neighbourhood Plans through undeliverable targets, building in even greater risk of failure to meet the five-year land supply in the next iteration of the Local Plan. We hope we can also have constructive discussions with Wiltshire Councils and our MPs on this issue as well.
“We look forward to agreeing a specific meeting date with the council soon. In the meantime, because of the urgency of the current situation we have written directly to the government and are inviting Wiltshire Council and our Wiltshire MPs to join us in this effort.”
Councils involved include: Downton, Idmiston, Laverstock and Ford, Tisbury, Westbury, and Warminster.