Neihbourhood Plan area designation - parish v settlement - Public forum - Planning Advisory Service (PAS)

I've not got any experience of designating an area but my understanding is that only a Parish Council can produce a Neighbourhood Plan within a parished area. If i understand your question, parish A wants to designate an area that extends across some or all of parish B. Only if Parish B agree can Parish A proceed - even if you think there are good planning reasons for the neighbourhood area to cross parish boundaries, the consent of the parish is needed.

Needless to say, Government maintains its trappist approach to clarification in setting out the circumstances in which an application for a neighbourhood area can be declined. As I read it, the underlying assumption behind the Localism Act is that, where they exist, Parishes are deemed to be a) logical neighbourhood planning units and b) representative of their communities. I think that if a Parish wishes to prepare a plan, it cannot be prevented from doing so. Similarly, spatial logic notwithstanding, the Local Planning Authority cannot impose 'shotgun weddings'. Parish A can only produce a settlement-wide plan with the consent of Parish B. If this cannot be obtained, Parish A could still prepare a plan for its part of the settlement. There will be matters of strategic conformity which may be difficult to resolve. Parish B may be influenced by the prospect of higher CIL reciepts or less permissive development management. Perhaps Parishes should be made subject to the Duty to Co-operate...

Many thanks. I am not sure yet what efforts have been made to persuade the 2nd parish council to join forces. However the Harpsden PC letter in respect of the Henley and Harpsden Neighbourhood Plan in South Oxfordshire may be a way forward, where they are not bound by the policies in the plan but their electors can vote in the referendum.

This is really interesting Ingrid - do you know what it was that persuaded the second parish to throw its lot in with the other parish?  (I am assuming that they will do it together rather than two contiguous but separate plans)

A lot of local politics and commenting of each other's minutes. I am not sure if they have formally drawn up a 'memorandum of understanding' but they have decided to collaborate. I understand this means they will work on separate topics. Even agreeing to a suitable time to meet seems impossible! I have not been in the same room with the whole team from both parishes.

  Ingrid, do you think that it would help your parishes if they were put in contact with people who have been part of a successful consortium of parishes working on neighbourhood planning?  I had Upper Eden in mind.  This involved 17 parishes, so I imagine that they have lots of good experience in manging the process and managing to keep people engaged and on track.  The link to the council's website  might give you some threads to follow up.  http://www.eden.gov.uk/planning-and-development/planning-policy-for-eden/neighbourhood-planning/upper-eden-neighbourhood-plan/

Another thing that you may be able to help them with is to put the key people in the parishes in touch with Locality, if they are not already speaking to them.  Through locality they may be able to access either direct support or grant funding for their project.  The link is http://locality.org.uk/projects/building-community/

Hope these ideas help move things forward

Phillipa, many thanks for your advice. I have advised them to speak to Locality and have provided them with the weblinks to this and the 'my communities' websites. I will raise it with them when I next meet them.