A neighbourhood plan for Littlemore
We hope that as many people as possible who live, study or work in Littlemore will assist in creating a Neighbourhood Plan for Littlemore. It is a good way for everyone in Littlemore, whatever their views, to come together to try and make Littlemore an even better place to live.
What is a Neighbourhood Plan?
A Neighbourhood Plan is a statutory planning document which links with the Oxford City Local Plan but provides more of a local flavour. The aim of it is to ensure that future development is in line with what local people want and think is appropriate for Littlemore Parish. Neighbourhood Plans contain two sorts of policy – strategic ones which directly affect planning applications and community ones which are more general to highlight possible improvements. The Plan has to be approved at a referendum, which we hope will be in May 2025. So it does not deal with immediate issues but should be of great benefit to Littlemore in the long-term.
The process can be lengthy and complex but we try to keep people updated regularly through the Littlemore Local and the Parish Council website. We asked those who live, study or work in Littlemore to complete an Issues and Options survey in Summer 2023 and were pleased to receive 515 responses – thank you. During Autumn 2023 five policy groups drew up draft policies based on an analysis of these, statistics on Littlemore and discussions about the identity and character of Littlemore and how this may be affected over the next 15 years. In January 2024, the draft Plan was then written and in February 2024 the Parish Council approved it for public consultation. The pre-submission public consultation opened on May 7th and ran until 18th June 2024. We have now analyzed the responses (most of which were very positive) and made some relatively small changes in the light of these.
One part of the process is that Oxford City Council have to complete a screening statement to assess the need for a Strategic Environmental Assessment and/or a Habitats Regulations Assessment. They have indicated that this is not necessary and completed their formal screening statement which can be found here.
What happens next?
The revised Plan was approved by the Parish Council on Tuesday 10th September and has been formally submitted to Oxford City Council along with the required supporting documentation. The revised plan can be seen here. Oxford City Council have checked that the Plan meets the necessary legal requirements and arranged the next consultation. The consultation period on the Littlemore Neighbourhood Plan runs for 6 weeks from Monday 28th October to Monday 9th December 2024. You can leave comments on the OCC Consultation Portal or by email to [email protected] by 11:59pm on 9th December 2024.
After this, the Parish Council will need to consider any suggested changes. The Neighbourhood Plan will then need to be formally considered by an independent examiner which may result in further changes. We hope that the final Plan will then be put to residents for adoption in a referendum, in May 2025, though the timing depends on how quickly these processes are completed. Please contact Tony Eaude on [email protected] if you have any queries, and copy to the Clerk at [email protected]
November 2024