Shropshire Local Plan - Scoping Consultation

This is relevant to anyone in Bomere Heath that wants to comment on planning development sites in your areas.

Sites being Promoted for future development as part of the revised Shropshire Local Plan – Scoping Consultation. The consultation is available online and is open until the 15th July.To have your say, please respond.

https://getinvolved.shropshire.gov.uk/consultations/shropshire-local-plan-scoping-consultation/

The plan aims to establish the vision, measurable outcomes and spatial strategy for the sustainable development in Shropshire until 2046.

Local Development

The PC wanted to highlight what that means for us as a community. There is a full interactive Map available online showing the proposals for Shropshire, this is accessible on the PC Website. https://experience.arcgis.com/experience/232e9007138641d293996b3ba10eeee3?utm_source=copilot.com

Worryingly the land proposed for Bomere Heath extends beyond the most recent planning application to the North of the Village and although the land proposed will not necessarily translate that the all the land would be agreed, but it could!

The Pink area on the map shows options that Shropshire Council will be considering. This includes the most recent application site of 98 homes. But as you can see from the scale, Bomere Heath could face 2 or 3 more developments of a similar scale.

This will impact and strain infrastructure and if there is growth, the PC will push for this to be measured and proportionate and should take note of the local services and amenities including the school, doctors, dentists and we would hope that the community can participate in the consultation to make Shropshire Council hear our voice.

Councillors thought that it would be good to share outline proposals for Baschurch and the additional development that could be sited near the Prescott Surgery.

Neighbourhood Plan

The PC has been considering and actively finding out about a Neighbourhood plan, since we agreed last May, to investigate further to meaningfully update the 2016 Community Led Plan (CLP). This is now more relevant that ever.

Why is this important?

The CLP is a community backed outline aspirational action plan that the PC pull together, but this is not binding in any way, and although we can refer to the CLP, planners and authorities do not have to take note.

A Neighbourhood Plan (NhP) however, is a more formal process, that is recognisable because it is ratified by a community referendum and accepted as a Legal Planning Document that dictates what types of development can happen.

Find out more Neighbourhood and community-led plans | Shropshire Council.

A NhP can take 2 years to complete, but plans that are completed in draft potentially can be referred to. A NhP needs to be structured, have a clear purpose,

be Legal in its basis, Evidence based and can allow for future project planning.

How do we make a Neighbourhood Plan?

The PC will facilitate and fund the circa £16k costs, but crucially, the PC can only make up 30% of the committee, therefore we would need at least 8 members of the community to be on a steering group, and based on the timescale and breakout works, it is suggested that we need up to 20 people to be effective.

Even if the consultation agrees all the pink areas on the BH Map can be developed on between now & 2040, there is still a site planning application process to go through. If we have completed the NhP, any application would have to take note of our Plan and this may steer in the outcomes.

It is unlikely, but if we are very fast, there is a chance that a NhP could impact and steer what pink areas in the Village were accepted as development sites.

If you are interested in participating, please register your interest with the clerk. [email protected] We are powerless to start without a full and committed steering group.

https://next.shropshire.gov.uk/media/o0tfwf2t/draft-methodology-site-identification-assessment.pdf