SATURDAY, 30thJune is the last day to comment on the informal consultation of The Colne Plan. Colne Town Councillors are urging all residents and visitors to get their comments in.
The last two themes have been Community Facilities, with poster boy Steven Burke, and the rather more aspirational Transport.
Cllr. Sarah Cockburn-Price, Chairman of The Neighbourhood Plan Working Group, explained: “Even a single sentence of support is sufficient to help us. There are 18,900 people living in Colne, but so far, we have had fewer than 100 responses. We have pledges from many more, so please, if you have been putting it off, send your e-mail to [email protected] without delay!”
The Plan is a pivotal document for the development and protection of the town and its magnificent countryside and will set the agenda for Colne until 2030. Pendle Borough Council has devolved the allocation of land for housing to the Town Council as it develops its Neighbourhood Plan in parallel with Pendle Borough Council’s Local Plan Part II.
The Colne Neighbourhood Plan Working Group is currently having the sites it has identified for potential development assessed by independent consultants. Pendle Borough Council is thought to be looking to lower its housing targets in line with new Government guidelines and, if so, this will feed into The Colne Neighbourhood Plan.
The Working Group, which consists of residents’ Groups, such as The Waterside Neighbourhood Action Group, Lidgett & Beyond and The Horsfield Residents’ Association, as well as councillors, has been working on The Plan, refining its policies and building up its evidence for 18 months.
The whole plan can be viewed across several dedicated pages on the Town Council’s web site: www.new.colnetowncouncil.org.uk/neighbourhood-plan/.
Funding for Colne’s Neighbourhood Plan has been provided from central Government. Neighbourhood Plans are written by the local community, the people who best know and love the area, rather than the Local Planning Authority. Neighbourhood Plans are powerful tools to ensure communities get the right types of development, in the right place and so are important documents with real legal force. They therefore have certain formal procedures that they must go through to be passed and the level of response generated during the consultation phase is one of the elements that comes under scrutiny.
