Would you like to have a say in the future of our village?

Posted on April 28, 2015

Eaton Bray Parish Council have released the following article about the creation of a Neighbourhood Plan for Eaton Bray

Eaton Bray Neighbourhood Plan

Eaton Bray Parish Council are considering the need to draw up a Neighbourhood Plan document to set out the Village's wishes in terms of infrastructure, facilities and future development.

The Government and Central Bedfordshire are encouraging parishes to set out Neighbourhood Plans that demonstrate how communities would like to improve the villages and their surroundings in the future. It will also help provide some protection to this village when it comes to unwanted over-development and support the need for infrastructure improvements.

What is a Neighbourhood Plan? Put simply, it is a document that describes the desired plans for a village over a 5-10 year period and contains the areas that village residents feel are important and specifies what the majority wants.

It covers topics such as housing and development, schooling and amenities, environmental protection, transport and highways, to name but a few.

The document is something that would require a great deal of consultation with everyone in the village, planning and work to bring it all together. The challenge, once the village has agreed its content, is then to have CBC approve it. Once approved, it means that it provides some protection against the things we don't want in the village and support towards getting the things we do.

It is worth noting that the Plan is not something that is a clandestine way to get property building through and over-develop the village or to try and pass unwanted schemes in the village without consultation. Quite the opposite.

We think the best approach is to first see if having a plan for the village is something that we, as a village, all want. There are a lot of positive reasons for having a Plan, most notably protection from Government schemes being imposed upon us without our consent, along with finding out what ideas residents have for the village.

What happens now? We would like to hear from everyone in the village to see if everyone thinks it's a good idea to have a Neighbourhood Plan. Once we have consulted the village, it will indicate whether this is something that we should then action, setting up a working group to manage the project and starting the next stage of actual consultation.

Should you feel that, like our other neighbouring villages, we too should have a Neighbourhood Plan, we'd like to hear from you. Equally, we'd also like to know why you think we should not have one.

If you would like to know more about what a Neighbourhood Plan is, you can find out more on the website set up for parishes and town councils to: What is Neighbourhood Planning?.

Please visit our website, email or write to us with your views.

Source: Eaton Bray Parish Council