Community, Parish Council & Village
The Final HurdleIn March 2013 the Parish Council launched the Neighbourhood Plan project; we cleared the final hurdle on Wednesday night. Wednesday saw Colchester Borough Council approve the plan to make it official policy. We reached the “home straight” on 19th September when 862 electors gave a resounding thumbs up to the final plan; 59 voted against it and 1 voted to Stop Brexit! The record Continue reading “The Final Hurdle”
West Bergholt goes to the polls early!The residents of West Bergholt will go to the polls on Thursday 19th September to decide to adopt their local Neighbourhood Plan.
So far the presence of the emerging Neighbourhood Plan has been used by the Planning Inspectorate in four planning appeals, preventing some 250 additional houses. Chairman of the West Bergholt Neighbourhood Steering Group, Chris Stevenson, stated: Continue reading “West Bergholt goes to the polls early!”
Decision Time for Neighbourhood PlanAfter nearly 7 years of planning and consultation, it is now decision time for the West Bergholt Neighbourhood Plan. The Statutory ‘Regulation 16’ Consultation has taken place and some changes recommended. Consequently, a final version of the plan will soon be available on the website.
The decision will be made by referendum of registered electors which will take place on Thursday 19th September 2019. The referendum will ask the following simple question: Continue reading “Decision Time for Neighbourhood Plan”
Neighbourhood Plan Submitted for RatificationWest Bergholt submitted its final draft Neighbourhood Plan to Colchester Borough Council for ratification in late December last year. This followed endorsement of the Neighbourhood Plan Steering Group’s proposals by the Parish Council at its November meeting.
The latest version incorporates feedback received during our consultation with the community in June. As Planning Authority the Borough Council is now Continue reading “Neighbourhood Plan Submitted for Ratification”
Neighbourhood Plan reaches the final stretch – make sure your views are heardWe are reaching the final stretch and the Neighbourhood Plan is almost finalised. We are now holding a final community consultation in order to comply with planning legislation. This is termed the Regulation 14 consultation and it starts today for seven weeks. After considering responses the plan will be sent to Colchester Borough Council which will begin the statutory processes for the plan’s formal adoption as planning policy.
The consultation will take the form of:
To find out more and to view the consultation material listed above please visit our Neighbourhood Plan pages. We encourage everybody in the village to visit the main web-pages listed below; this will help to get you started:
We urge Residents and Businesses to read the NP documentation and then visit the exhibition in order to further understand the proposals for:
Take time to read the full Reg 14 documentation, visit the exhibition and give us your feedback. This is the last of the community consultations which will take place. After this, our plan has to take its chances in the rarefied atmosphere of a statutory planning examination. We will then call a referendum; after this, the plan can be declared a “statutory” plan.
As Chris Stevenson, Chairman of the Steering Group says:
The West Bergholt Neighbourhood Plan has taken several years to produce and I and my Steering group members have been delighted with the support received from the community to date. It has been my pleasure to lead a group of extremely motivated people, whose concerted effort has been to bring us to this point in the process. In this, the almost final version, we have taken on board many of the suggestions and comments received from previous consultations. What we need to do now is just check the final wording of the document and proposals contained. Please take the time to consider the plan and let us have your comments, not on the generality but on specific wording in the plan!
This is a pivotal point in our history. Never before has national and local government actually asked us to prepare our own plan to cover the next 15 years; make the most of this opportunity!
Chris Stevenson
Chairman West Bergholt Neighbourhood Plan Steering Group
Chairman West Bergholt Parish Council
CBC Declares us to be a ‘Sustainable Village’Colchester Borough Council’s Local Plan Committee is about to review its draft Local Plan and associated reports on 5th July. The village features in this draft plan as a ‘sustainable village’.
Whereas this may sound like a comforting declaration, it also heralds the prospect of further growth, although the village has escaped Continue reading “CBC Declares us to be a Sustainable Village”
Neighbourhood Plan Makes ProgressThe Neighbourhood Plan meeting that took place earlier this month resulted in much progress with an almost completed first draft plan. The picture on the right shows the Contents page to give some idea of what to expect when the final report is published (click on it for larger picture).
You will notice that a lot of the the section headings have blank ‘App Buttons’ and, since the plan will impact the children’s future, the NP group are running a competition for the pupils at Heathlands to design what the blanks should be filled in with.
There are 8 categories and these are listed below, there will be a winner and a prize selected for each App Button. The Categories are:
The Neighbourhood Plan AGM with the NP Steering Group is on Wednesday 4th November 2015 at 7.30pm in the John Lampon Hall. Do come along to find out about the progress of the Plan. We would also welcome anyone who would like to become a member of the NP Steering Group.
The production of the West Bergholt Neighbourhood Plan is progressing well. After the successful and well-attended exhibitions earlier in the year at the Orpen Hall more completed questionnaires were sent in by hand or on the web.
Over the summer period the NP Steering Group has completed analysing all the questionnaire responses and the results will shortly be available on this web site.
Sub-groups of the Steering Group have now been formed to write a narrative of the questionnaire results in all the categories for the Plan. You can follow news related to the Neighbourhood Plan by using the Facebook Group or checking our news page periodically which will include PC meetings where the Neighbourhood Plan has been discussed.
For further information please check the links below or contact:- Chris Stevenson (NP chairperson) 241708.
The Neighbourhood Plan Steering Group held 3 exhibitions in March and April explaining the development of the Plan. They were well attended by many village residents and by Parish Councillors from other nearby villages and were most successful. This has resulted in more questionnaires being completed – the more we receive the more we can represent village views. The collection box will remain in the Post Office in the Coop until 21st May. So, if you haven’t sent yours in yet – do it now!!! Alternatively, you can complete it online (which will save the Steering Group time transcribing paper copies).
The results will be collated and analysed by the steering group to produce a definitive Neighbourhood Plan and will be made public to all residents later in the year.
For further information on the NP contact :- Chris Stevenson NP chairperson at:- cdstevenson @gmail.com or visit the Neighbourhood Plan webpages.
It is great to see this local village Pub is now doing well. It has been taken on by Mark Killick as the landlord and you will always receive a cheerful welcome from him and his staff. Mark has seen the pub refurbished and it now looks very bright and inviting and very family friendly.
Mark is a trained chef and has previously worked in several Essex village pubs as a chef so you can be sure the meals on offer will be really good.
The opening times of the pub are:-
The beers on offer are also very good with a great selection!!
Read archive Village Bulletins and News on the Village Bulletin & News webpage.
Visit the Neighbourhood Plan exhibition at the Orpen Hall, on Saturdays 11th and 18th April 11am to 4pm, to find out how the Neighbourhood Plan Group would respond to this question; refreshments will be available. But the Neighbourhood Plan Group really need your views as well and are looking for a response from as many people as possible. It takes about 20 minutes to view the exhibition, if you want to discuss any of the proposals, members of the steering group will be available.
Do you like their suggestions? If not, tell them why? THIS IS YOUR CHANCE, TO HAVE YOUR SAY.
Find out more on our website at: