About

Why do we need a Neighbourhood Plan?

The CPNP (Cressing Parish Neighbourhood Plan) will eventually be part of the planning process. All planning decisions taken in the parish will have to take into account the Policies contained in the Plan once it has been through all the processes and 'made' .

As the wider Braintree Local Plan has encountered problems with the Planning Inspectorate and is now unlikely to be complete before 2020/2021, it is important that we continue to move ahead with our Neighbourhood Plan. In the absence of an approved Local Plan for the District our CPNP will need to be taken into account when it comes to deciding where housing should or shouldn't be built and what kind of housing we need. This has been further reinforced by the most recent updates to the governments Localism Act relating to Neighbourhood Planning published on the 9th May. One update being that emerging Neighbourhood Plans should be given greater weight in any decisions on planning applications in the area covered by the plan. The Further Information page has a link for these updates.

How far have we got?

The Neighbourhood Plan was first begun in 2013 by the Parish Council registering their interest in producing a Plan for the Parish with Braintree District Council and beginning the process with help from RCCE - Rural Community Council of Essex - who held several workshops in the Parish in conjunction with the Parish Council to find out what it was people wanted and didn't want to see happen in Cressing between now and 2033.

In spite of some hard work by a few people, this rather fell by the wayside for a while until a new burst of enthusiasm and some more volunteers came forward in 2015 to move things along again and start to build on the work that had begun earlier.

Background work was done and a comprehensive Neighbourhood Plan Survey was produced. In October 2016 it was distributed by hand with the willing help of about 30 people posting the weighty documents out to all households in the parish. An exhibition was held in St Barnabas to encourage completion and give information during the period before the survey had to be posted or handed in. An encouraging 34.4% of households completed the survey. This was then reviewed by an independent company - Warwick - who produced the Findings Report that you will find in full on the Evidence Base page along with a link to a copy of the original survey. We had a further exhibition to give people in the parish the opportunity to see the results of this in March 2017 and another smaller questionnaire was completed by 50 of the people who attended the exhibition which helped towards formulating some of the Policies subsequently included in the plan.

Following this we continued producing the Plan and with the help of grant funding engaged the assistance of a consultant - David Coleman - who gave us invaluable help and support which meant that we could produce a full Draft Neigbourhood Plan for Regulation 14 consultation in August/September last year. Following amendments and further evidence base documents being produced, the final plan was ready for submission to BDC for Regulation 15 in January 2019.

This is where we are at the moment. As one of the environmental documents needed to be repeated and because of the 'purdah' period on Consultations due to the Local Council elections on 2nd May, further progress on the Plan has been delayed until after that date.

The Regulation 16 Consultation with the Statutory Consultees can then begin. This will be followed by an inspection undertaken by an independent Planning Inspector in late Summer. A Parish Referendum will then be the next step.

UPDATE January 2020:

  • We have been through all the processes outlined above and have reached the stage of the REFERENDUM
  • This will take place in the Parish on Thursday 6th February 2020 at the Pavilion, Jeffreys Road, Tye Green.
  • Further information can be found on the Referendum page.

UPDATE FEBRUARY 2020

  • The result of the Referendum was a 94.5% vote in favour of acceptance
  • Will go to Braintree District Full Council on 17th February 2020
  • The Cressing Parish Neighbourhood Plan was 'made' by Full Council on 17th February 2020