Draft Crudwell Neighbourhood Plan Consultation
What’s happening and how you can help
Dear Resident,
Over the past two years or so, a Steering Group of local residents and Parish Councillors has been developing a Neighbourhood Plan for Crudwell. This is a crucial local planning document in helping to ensure that any future development in Crudwell Parish reflects the wishes of its residents and protects the things that make it such a wonderful place to live.
Thanks to contributions from across our community, the Crudwell Neighbourhood Plan lays out how any proposed expansion should respect the amenities, facilities, character, and environment of the Parish for existing and future residents.
Many of you commented on the regulation 14 draft plan in late 2018, for which we are extremely grateful. All these comments have been considered for the final draft of the Plan, which has been submitted to Wiltshire Council for examination. There now follows an eight-week consultation – commencing Monday, 29th June until 5pm on Monday, 24th August – during which any comments can be submitted for consideration by an independent examiner before it is put to a referendum of local residents, and subsequently ‘made’.
Getting this Plan ‘made’, i.e. finished and approved, as quickly as possible is now crucial because without it we are once again vulnerable to inappropriate development. With a made Neighbourhood Plan, it becomes much easier to control the location of new housing in Crudwell and any proposed development will then comply with the collective wishes of its residents in terms of type and scale.
Without a made Plan,Wiltshire Council might permit extra housing in Crudwell to fix a housing land supply problem. This is much less likely once we have a ‘made’ Plan or indeed the closer we get to this.
The Plan also states our requirements for developers, for example addressing issues such as flooding, road safety and design.
Therefore, we would like to encourage you to review the Plan and, should you have any comments, submit them to Wiltshire Council prior to the deadline. Details of how to do this are on the following pages of this leaflet.We have also outlined here the main areas covered in the Plan but please review it in full, as well as the supporting documents and the reasons behind each policy.
Many thanks,
Crudwell Neighbourhood Plan Steering Group
Where to view the plan
A copy of the submitted Plan, along with the other supporting documents, is available to review in the following ways:
- view online at Wiltshire Council’s Consultation Portal
- if you do not have an internet connection you can request a printed copy from Wiltshire Council by emailing neighbourhoodplanning@wiltshire.gov.uk or calling 01225 713598 or 770354.
- from the Parish Clerk at: parishclerk@crudwell-pc.gov.uk
The consultation period ends at 5pm on Monday 24th August.
How to submit your comments
Once you have viewed the Plan, any comments need to be sent to Wiltshire Council by emailing neighbourhoodplanning@wiltshire.gov.uk or you can leave your comments on Wiltshire Council’s Consultation Portal.
Any questions
If you have any questions for the Steering Group, please email us at plan@my-crudwell.org. You can also speak with Wiltshire Council’s Spatial Planning team on 01225 713598 or email
neighbourhoodplanning@wiltshire.gov.uk.
We hope to hold public drop-in events, but given the coronavirus we may not be able to. We do plan to hold virtual events and Q&A sessions however. Please continue to check the website for up to date information on this.
What happens next?
Once comments have been received,Wiltshire Council will appoint an independent examiner who will consider all the comments and decide if any changes should be made to the Neighbourhood Plan.
In 2021 there will then be a referendum of all Crudwell residents when you will be asked: “Do you want Wiltshire Council to use the Neighbourhood Plan for Crudwell to help it decide planning applications in the neighbourhood area?”
If a majority of people that vote in the referendum support the Plan, it is ‘made’. Once this happens the Neighbourhood Plan becomes part of the Development Plan, and is used to influence planning decisions, therefore meaning Crudwell’s future is determined by those who know and love it best.
What the Crudwell Neighbourhood plan covers
Design and Development
Local housing need and Housing Allocation
The Housing Needs Assessment produced for the Neighbourhood Plan concludes that Crudwell Parish needs 20 to 25 more dwellings up to 2026. This is mainly to ensure that we can deliver 8 more affordable homes. The Steering Group considered 10 sites to meet this need. The Tuners Lane site and the Ridgeway Farm site were the only ones deliverable in principle by 2026, so these are the ones that the Steering Group spent time assessing.
Splitting the 20 to 25 houses between the two sites (one of the Regulation 14 queries) was carefully considered but is disadvantageous for several reasons, including limiting what we can ask developers to do, including providing affordable housing, mitigating impacts of development, and funding for improvements to Parish facilities and infrastructure.
Therefore, following close assessment on the impacts of development on both sites, the Neighbourhood Plan concludes that the Tuners Lane site should be allocated. The chief factors leading to this were the findings of independent surveys and advice, which concluded that it would be safer and easier for pedestrians to get to the Tuners Lane site than the Ridgeway Farm site without losing hedgerows, and because developing the Tuners Lane site has less of an impact on the Conservation Area. Full details of all the findings and considerations can be found in the Neighbourhood Plan and supporting documentation.
The policy allocating Tuners Lane includes 11 criteria setting out different requirements for the development, from the way it looks to the infrastructure that is provided on site or off site to make sure that its impacts are mitigated. The policy also gives the community an input, through a Community Liaison Group, into the way the development is designed.
There is also a policy on design, and a Design Guide which aims to make sure that new development proposals, at Tuners Lane and anywhere else in Crudwell, are designed to be in keeping with Crudwell’s character.
Infrastructure and Transport
Drainage and Flooding
We know that flooding from the Swill Brook, from surface water, and from the sewerage system is a major concern in the village. A policy on Surface Water and Foul Water Drainage makes sure that any new development will not make existing flooding problems worse and will reduce the current risk.
Highway Safety
We also know that safety for people moving around Crudwell, especially those on foot and bicycles, is particularly important to the local community. Our policy on this requires any planning applications to demonstrate how pedestrians and cyclists can get safely from the development to the parish’s facilities, and to particularly consider whether the existing footway is good enough and safe enough.
Community and leisure
Crudwell Primary School
We know from consultation that the school is very important to the community, both in terms of educating Crudwell’s young children, and also in terms of helping to build relationships and a sense of community within the parish. Our policy in the Plan aims to protect the school from redevelopment, particularly in the current climate where the Government is looking at new ways to provide education for children of all ages.
The Environment
Other Regulation 14 draft policies
Preserving the natural environment and wildlife in Crudwell is also very important to Parishioners. Our regulation 14 draft policy included policies to protect biodiversity and to encourage renewable energy, as long as it is in the right place. However Wiltshire Council have told us that their Core Strategy policies deal with these issues already, so they are not required.
We do plan to look into environmental issues in more detail in the next Neighbourhood Plan to 2036, work on which will commence when this current plan is made. This will allow us the time and resources to do this more thoroughly. It is though important to maintain progress now so that we are protected from inappropriate development.
Letter from Wiltshire Council
You are welcome to read Wiltshire Council’s letter regarding Regulation 16 though much of the information is included above.