Great response to public consultation on draft Neighbourhood Plan

THE Melksham Neighbourhood Plan steering group would like to say a huge thank you to everyone that took the time and effort to read and submit comments on the draft Melksham Neighbourhood Plan. 

The 8-week public consultation took place during June and July and closed at midnight on Monday 27th July.  The steering group made up of members of Melksham Without Parish Council, Melksham Town Council, Wiltshire Council and local community members, have already met virtually a couple of times in August to begin the process of reviewing each and every comment. 

Nearly 100 different people, organisations and statutory consultees submitted comments, with almost 300 individual comments against different policies and evidence documents.   In addition, there were over 3,000 visits to the Melksham Neighbourhood Plan website, from over 2,100 different people during the 8-week consultation period.    

Despite the consultation being undertaken during the current Covid-19 social isolation measures, which meant public drop-in sessions were unable to be held, the response to the consultation has been good, and definitely on a par with other similar consultations undertaken in comparative areas before the pandemic arose.  

Wiltshire Council has congratulated the group on the way that the consultation was conducted and the response it received. The website has also provided some interesting statistics such as 1,500 people viewed the plan by a desktop computer, 1,200 by mobile phone and 275 by tablet.  The website had been specifically upgraded before the consultation to ensure it met accessibility standards, and for ease of viewing by different devices.

You may have seen some of the many “talking heads” videos that were on the website and on local social media sites, that utilised local people to explain different aspects of the plan and the process. Nearly 800 people watched the videos from a link on the website, but there were over 26,000 people reached by Facebook with nearly 14,000 videos watched from that link. This is exactly the sort of access that the steering group wanted to achieve, to reach out and engage with members of the public that may not normally be interested in planning policies!   

For those not online, members of the public could ring either the town or parish council and ask for a hard copy to be posted to them, and the consultation was initially advertised by a leaflet delivered to every dwelling (business and domestic) in the plan area.

 During September, the comments will all be reviewed and assessed, with recommendations being made to amend policies and the draft plan where appropriate. There will also be recommendations on what to do about issues raised by residents that are out of the scope of the plan, which has to reflect planning policy and land use only.   

The final version of the plan is then submitted to Wiltshire Council who undertake their own formal consultation, this will give you as local people who live, work and run a business in the plan area, another chance to have your say.  Once those comments have been assessed and any adjustments made, then the plan is submitted to the government’s planning inspection for their assessment.  Once that has been tested for soundness by the inspector and any adjustments made, then you all get your say again, by a majority vote at a referendum. Under current overarching national government Covid-19 policy, no elections or referendums can be held until May 2021, but because of that ruling, neighbourhood plans that have gone through the consultation and inspection process, take on more weight in determining planning applications before they can finally be voted on. Then, with a favourable majority, it will become an adopted plan to determine future housing developments and other planning policy issues in the Melksham area.

Look out for more updates in the Melksham News as the plan progresses, you can also visit the dedicated website https://www.melkshamneighbourhoodplan.org/ and Facebook page.

 A big thank you again to all of you that took part in shaping the future of Melksham and Melksham Without.