Our Neighbourhood plan is a legal document that East Hampshire District Council planning authority must refer to when making planning application decisions in Ropley parish. It gives our community the opportunity to choose where new housing goes, what type of housing is needed, and identifies areas or features that need the most protection. Ropley’s current Neighbourhood Plan was adopted in 2019 and covered the period up until 2028 in line with East Hampshire’s own Local Plan also expiring in 2028.
However recent changes to the National Planning Policy Framework means that Neighbourhood plans are now only effective if they are less than 5 years old.
Ropley’s Neighbourhood Plan is now in its 6th year so is out of date and can no longer control what development the village acquires or where it is built, leaving us at risk of speculative development applications, e.g. 18 new homes on Bighton Hill.
Our Plan needs to be updated, so what is being done to achieve that end? The Neighbourhood Plan Steering Group has agreed that the most important thing is to create and have a new Neighbourhood Plan in place as soon as possible to get its policies and protections back in place. To do this quickly, at this stage we need to keep any changes minimal so we do not change the nature of the Plan, so will not be including any new policies or new sites.
We plan to hold a public consultation meeting, where you can find out about the modifications to the Plan.
@ The Parish Hall.
Friday 16th May between 7.30pm & 9.00pm.
Please come along to this drop-in session anytime from 7.30 to talk to the team and discuss what we are doing.
A formal six week public consultation on Ropley’s proposed new Neighbourhood Plan will run from 1st June to 12th July.
More information and a link to the survey (from 1st June) will be available on the Neighbourhood Plan page
at https://www.myropley.org.uk/ropley-neighbourhood-planning/
We will also have some physical copies of the questionnaire available at the shop.
Jennie Sharman