Localism
When the Localism Bill was first presented to Parliament in December 2010, the Government was looking for a small number of communities which wanted to prepare their own NDP to come forward to trial the process. Interested communities were invited to bid for Government funding and assistance. MVDC suggested that Bookham might like to submit a bid given the work it had done on Bookham Vision. A bid was submitted on behalf of Bookham and was approved. A funding grant of £20,000 was provided by the Department of Communities and Local Government. The first meeting of a “Start-Up” group took place in June 2011 to begin planning the project under the name “Bookham Vanguard”.
The Forum
The Localism Act 2011 lays down strict rules about how a representative body should be formed to prepare an NDP if there is no elected Parish Council. The legislation requires an application to be made to the local planning authority identifying the proposed area of the NDP and the people (the Forum) that will carry out the work. The Start-Up group recruited the required Forum which applied to MVDC for designation in May 2012. The application for designation was approved on 25th September 2012.
This plan is the result. It was prepared and approved by the members of the Forum at meetings held in the period 2012-2015. Attendance by members of the Forum at Forum meetings was only once less than 65% of the current membership. How the Forum was formed is set out at Appendix 3 and 4
Public Involvement
Great effort was made to inform and involve the local community during the course of preparing this plan.
A Bookham Vanguard website was created www.bookhamvanguard.co.uk
This gives details of meetings, minutes of the proceedings and information on public events. Bookham Vanguard also set up an associated Facebook page and a Twitter feed.
Public meetings, newsletters, articles in local publications, videos and other methods were used to involve the community. Further details can be found at Appendix 5.
Mole Valley District Council Decisions
In January 2012, MVDC started to work on the preparation of its Housing and Travellers Sites Plan (“HTSP”) when it invited views on a draft review of the Green Belt boundary. This led to difficulties for Bookham Vanguard who were preparing this Neighbourhood Development Plan against the background of the District Council’s own plan making work. The situation became even more difficult when in January 2014, MVDC published details of the 80 sites that land owners had suggested should be allocated for development in the Housing and Travellers Sites Plan. In June 2014 MVDC carried out a consultation on further sites, including those in Bookham. However MVDC decided to terminate the HTSP in December 2014 in favour of preparing a new Local Plan for Mole Valley.
This means that our NDP needs to conform to MVDC’s existing Local Plan (created in 2000) and Core Strategy (created in 2009). These planning documents do not include changes to the Green Belt. As a consequence, neither does the NDP.
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