The Neighbourhood Plan Steering Group is pleased to report that the Independent Examiner appointed to consider the draft Neighbourhood Plan has concluded that it meets the basic conditions and has recommended to Wiltshire Council that it can proceed to referendum subject to some modifications.
The decision about whether the Plan proceeds to referendum ultimately rests with Wiltshire Council and, following their consideration of the Examiner’s Report and recommendations, Wiltshire Council has now issued a ‘Decision Statement’ which confirms that it can proceed.
The required modifications are now being made to the plan which will be returned to Wiltshire Council.
However, because of the Covid 19 pandemic, referendums cannot be held until at least May 2021. We will inform you of the referendum arrangements as soon as these are available from Wiltshire Council.
In the meantime, the Plan, having reached this stage, has a great deal of weight in decisions about planning applications, so it should already protect Crudwell from speculative planning applications that could come forward because Wiltshire Council’s housing land supply is below the required five years. With a made Neighbourhood Plan, speculative applications only become more likely to be approved when Wiltshire’s housing land supply is below three years, which is not the case.