Gillingham Neighbourhood Plan
Gillingham Neighbourhood Plan Survey 2023
The Gillingham Neighbourhood Plan, was adopted in 2018, it is now being reviewed and updated and we need your help to shape the future of the town.
Please complete our survey by clicking here..
This survey is anonymous unless you choose to include your details.
The Gillingham Neighbourhood Plan
Neighbourhood Planning was introduced by the Localism Act 2011 and enables local communities to play a direct role in planning the areas in which they live and work.
Neighbourhood plans are led by authorised local community organisations, known as qualifying bodies (also referred to as neighbourhood planning bodies), including parish or town councils (often through steering groups) or neighbourhood forums, rather than the council’s planning department. This means that community representatives lead the plan, often with support from their preferred consultants. The qualifying body for the Gillingham Neighbourhood Plan is Gillingham Town Council.
In 2012 Gillingham Town Council set up a Neighbourhood Plan Group, and research work began. Public engagement and consultation events were held, and various suggestions and issues were investigated.
A draft plan was produced for consultation in May 2016. Following public consultation and an independent examination, North Dorset District Council made the decision that the plan, as modified, should proceed to referendum.
Following a majority ‘yes’ vote in the referendum, the decision was taken to make the Neighbourhood Plan part of the development plan for the Gillingham neighbourhood area and The Gillingham Neighbourhood Plan was officially ‘made’ on 27 July 2018.
The decision statement is available to view on the Dorset Council website here
The adopted Gillingham Neighbourhood Plan is available to view on the Dorset Council website here
Monitoring the Plan
Once made, the Gillingham Neighbourhood Plan became part of the statutory development plan, meaning that Dorset Council, as the Local Planning Authority (LPA), has to decide planning applications in accordance with the neighbourhood plan, unless material considerations indicate otherwise.
There is no formal requirement to monitor or review neighbourhood plans, but it is good practice and helps to ensure that neighbourhood plans remain relevant and effective.
In November 2020 Gillingham Town Council set up a sub-committee to monitor and review the Gillingham Neighbourhood Plan. The sub-committee has carried out assessments to establish if any of the policies are ineffective in practice and whether or not these policies need to be revised.
Reviewing the Plan
It is good practice to review neighbourhood plans in line with any changes to local and national policies in order to address any incompatibilities.
The Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government published a revise National Planning Policy Framework (NPPF) in July 2018, at the same time as the Gillingham Neighbourhood Plan was ‘made’. Further changes to the NPPF were made on 19 February 2019 and 20 July 2021.
One of the key changes to the NPPF was Footnote 7 which refers to Paragraph 11d and sets out when policies are deemed to be out of date for housing applications; Footnote 7 states:
‘This includes, for applications involving the provision of housing, situations where the local planning authority cannot demonstrate a five year supply of deliverable housing sites (with the appropriate buffer, as set out in paragraph 73); or where the Housing Delivery Test indicates that the delivery of housing was substantially below (less than 75% of) the housing requirement over the previous three years’.
Dorset Council cannot currently demonstrate a five-year supply of deliverable housing sites and it has been concluded that there is 3.42 years of supply across the local plan area.
Paragraph 14 of the NPPF sets out the tests for the application of Neighbourhood plans as follows:
‘In situations where the presumption (at paragraph 11d) applies to applications involving the provision of housing, the adverse impact of allowing development that conflicts with the neighbourhood plan is likely to significantly and demonstrably outweigh the benefits, provided all of the following apply:
- the neighbourhood plan became part of the development plan two years or less before the date on which the decision is made;
- the neighbourhood plan contains policies and allocations to meet its identified housing requirement;
- the local planning authority has at least a three-year supply of deliverable housing sites (against its five-year housing supply requirement, including the appropriate buffer as set out in paragraph 73); and
- the local planning authority’s housing delivery was at least 45% of that required over the previous three years.
When reviewing a neighbourhood plan consideration should be given to any changes to local plans; it should be noted that a consultation on the Dorset Council Local Plan was carried out earlier this year. Further details of the consultation process is available here.
Changes to the local area should also be considered, including employment opportunities and population, as these factors may be relevant when considering changes to the neighbourhood plan.
Revision of the Neighbourhood Plan
A decision to revise the neighbourhood plan can only be done by the neighbourhood plan qualifying body, Gillingham Town Council.
Consideration of the information gained during the monitoring and review stage helped in deciding whether the Gillingham Neighbourhood Plan needed to be revised.
In September 2021 Gillingham Town Council decided that a revision of the Gillingham Neighbourhood Plan (2016 – 2031) is necessary. This decision was based on the following information:
- The Gillingham Neighbourhood Plan is over two years old;
- Dorset Council cannot currently demonstrate a five-year supply of deliverable housing sites, and
- The Gillingham Neighbourhood Plan has no housing allocation over and above that which is included within the Local Plan.
Consultations were carried out in 2021 and result can be found by click on the link below:
Further information will be added to this page as soon as it becomes available.