We are very pleased that we have two new resident members of the Steering Group – Ali Butcher and Sinead Howard – who attended their first meeting on Thursday 31st October.
The meeting began with a reminder of the purpose of the Neighbourhood Plan – to highlight areas in the village that need to be protected as well as those that need to be changed so that in twenty years time the village will still be a really good place to live.
And how important it is to get it right because the plan will be used by Babergh to decide any future planning applications in the village alongside the Joint Local Plan and the National Planning Policy Framework.
We then noted the process so far: Finding out the issues of concern to the village such as protecting biodiversity, and the peace and quiet, and the need to improve our community facilities and parking by the school for example. Objectives were then written based on these issues. We have to have good evidence for our chosen objectives and although we have gathered a lot, there are still gaps that need filling.
Our next step is to organise Focus Groups from different groups in the village to discuss the options for achieving our objectives. To this end we are holding a Supporters’ meeting on Thursday 28th November to encourage them to join in and to update them with the progress of the Neighbourhood Plan so far.
