Purpose

Harston Parish Council is preparing a Neighbourhood Plan and has
reached the stage of pre-submission consultation (Regulation 14 in
the national guidance).  At this stage
it is the responsibility of the parish council to carry out a
public consultation on the neighbourhood plan for their area. We
congratulate the Neighbourhood Plan team and recognise the hard
work has been put into the preparation of this plan for Harston by
the parish council and local community.

 

Officers have considered the contents of the Harston
Neighbourhood Plan against the basic condition tests that all
neighbourhood plans are assessed against by an independent examiner
(these tests include such matters as general conformity with
national planning policy and the policies of the adopted Local
Plan).

 

Through this consideration several comments have been
identified.

 

Cabinet agreed on the 26 July 2018 that the submission of such
comments be delegated to officers at this stage of plan
preparation.

 

The
proposed comments include both general and specific matters and are
attached at Appendix A. 

 

The
comments are intended to enable the group taking forward the
Neighbourhood Plan to consider the need to amend it to improve the
likelihood that an Independent Examiner would be able to recommend
that it proceed to referendum and to help ensure that the plan is
capable of effective implementation through the development
management process.

 

While
there are several comments set out in Appendix A, we hope that
these comments are seen, not as unhelpful criticism of the plan,
but rather a genuine attempt by officers to support the
Neighbourhood Plan team by identifying a number
of areas where the plan could be further refined so that it
is successful at examination. We wish the parish council well for
the next steps in the plan making.

Content

That
the Joint Director for Planning and Economic Development having
liaised with the Lead Cabinet Member for Planning agrees the
response to the pre-submission consultation on the
Harston Neighbourhood Plan by South
Cambridgeshire District Council as set out in Appendix
A.