Cubert Neighbourhood Development Plan
Progress Update
The Story So Far ……..
Since 2015, central government has placed a renewed emphasis on planning at a local level because it believes local people know best what local needs are and how they can be met. A key component of this strategy is the Neighbourhood Development Plan (NDP) which allows parishioners a real say in shaping the future of their parish.
Some neighbouring Parish Councils already have a NDP in place (Crantock) and others are in coming towards the end of the process (Perranporth, St Agnes) and others haven’t made a start yet (it isn’t compulsory).
Early in 2019, Cubert Parish Council (CPC) took the decision to apply to Cornwall Council (CC) to “designate” Cubert Parish as a Neighbourhood Plan Area and the application was approved on January 7th, 2019. The ball was rolling!
Over the following months the Parish Council received a plethora of initial information and advice from the specialist NDP team at Cornwall Council. Some members of CPC met with planning officers at County Hall in an attempt to try and work out how we were going to embark on the NDP process and a member of CC team came to a PC meeting to help explain things still further. None of us have done it before and the NDP will play an important part in the development of the parish over at least the next ten or so years.
By the summer, the Parish Council felt ready to move to the next stage and in July 2019 a notice was place in the Cubert News asking for volunteers to form a “Steering Group (SG)” to manage the NDP preparation process. It typically takes between 2-4 years to complete the process, so joining the SG is a significant commitment.
On August 5th, fourteen “volunteers” turned up at the village hall and the SG was formed. We have since grown to sixteen and details of all SG members are included on the Contacts drop down menu of this website. One of the first tasks was to prepare Terms of Reference and sign a Code of Conduct policy and these were approved by CPC in October. At last we were ready to start the “proper job”!
So what happens next?
Really the most important part of the whole is process is finding out the views and thoughts of people living in the parish. This is your plan, for your community. So we have been busy over the last three months preparing a survey that will be circulated to all parishioners as well as being available on the website. There are sections on Transport, Leisure, Education and Business, Heritage, the Environment and Housing and Other Development.
This is your opportunity to tell us what is important to you in terms of the development of Cubert. So once Christmas is over and you have taken the decorations down, please take a little time to complete and return the survey. We can’t go much further without knowing what you think?
From now on, we will try and put monthly updates of progress on the website so everyone knows what is going on. Please let us know what you think?
Gareth Rowe
