Friday 3 February 2017

We say YES to the Neighbourhood Plan


If you live in the Framlingham Parish you will have recently received a polling card to vote in the Framlingham Neighbourhood Plan Referendum. The referendum takes place on 9th February 2017 and for the plan to be adopted 51% of the people who turn up and vote on the day must support the plan.
We urge you to take part in the Referendum and support the Neighbourhood Plan because it is the only statutory instrument the town has to control development in and around the town. Without a Neighbourhood Plan the town will continue to be an easy target for additional development.
This is the final stage in the process of the town adopting a Neighbourhood Plan. The plan itself is largely unchanged from the draft distributed to all homes in the Summer 2016. The biggest change is that the Planning Inspectorate required the Physical Limits Boundary (this defines the area within which development will be permitted) to be re-drawn to include the Mount Pleasant and Fairfield Road sites. This brings the plan into line with Government and District policies. Other changes are mainly layout and grammar and are designed to make it easier to read. 
Suffolk Coastal District Council has been told that it must review its new homes plan for the period up to 2027 and the total number of new dwellings required at a district level is expected to go up significantly. The Framlingham Neighbourhood Plan sets out Policies for the scale and location of new development in the town so we won’t get any more massive green field developments like Fairfield Road.
A  Neighbourhood Plan gives communities real power in deciding how development in their town or village should be managed. Importantly this was confirmed in a recent High Court ruling in favour of the policies of the East Bergholt Parish Council Neighbourhood Plan. In short the case centred on a decision by Babergh District Council to allow new homes to be built in a way that was contrary to Parish Council’s Neighbourhood Plan. The High Court ruled that the requirements of the District as a whole did not overrule the needs of the village as defined in their Neighbourhood Plan and the development application was quashed. 
Copies of the Neighbourhood Plan are available in the Library and the Town Council has copies available for you to take home and read. Alternatively you can download it from the Framlingham.com website.
So on 9th February please cast your vote in favour of the Neighbourhood Plan. This is an important decision and your town needs you.