Held at Walford Village Hall Wednesday 8th January, 2020 at 19:00
Present:
Councillors: Simeon Cole, Bob Puzey
Non- council members: Chris Barron (Acting Chair), Jon Stern
In attendance: Bill Bloxsome
1. Apologies for absence – Andrew de La Haye, Leigh Russell
Ian Matthews has resigned from the NDP Steering Group
2. Declarations of interest and written requests for dispensation – It was agreed that declarations of interests would be made as they became subject during the meeting.
3. Minutes – it was resolved to adopt the minutes of the meeting held on 5th December 2019 as a true and accurate record. They were signed by the Chair.
4. Finance
4.1 Report on Spending.
• It was agreed that there was a need to pick out NDP specific items from general invoices, for instance as for the Bishopswood Hall NDP launch meeting;
• It was noted that expenditure on the NDP since June 2019 had been £195.75. Most of this was hall bookings.
• It was agreed that there was a potential need for more habitat data, as proposed by Leigh. One potential source is the Herefordshire Biological Records Centre who would produce a standard report for £150+VAT.
5. Communications
5.1 Website progress
• The dedicated NDP Website was now expected to be operational by the end of Jan
5.2 Meeting at Walford Primary School
• It was agreed that plans for a presentation meeting at Walford School would be worked up, recognising that most pupils were not resident in Walford but that no firm date had yet been agreed
5.3 Correspondence
• Two pieces of correspondence had been received: firstly, a new site application; and secondly an enquiry about a planning issue which was referred to Herefordshire Council.
6. Other items
6.1 Chris attended a Herefordshire Core Strategy briefing on 20 December 2019. He reported the following:
• Herefordshire Council are currently reviewing the Core Strategy, against the latest version of the NPPF, and they are likely to decide that they need to revise the Core Strategy. This process could take at least 5 years to complete so the earliest date for a new revision of the Core Strategy to come into full effect is 2025.
• The Herefordshire Spatial Strategy may well change as a result of the revision process. This could affect the viability of Walford’s proposed development sites and implies the need for an NDP revision post-2025.
• The Strategic Planning Team at Herefordshire Council will be consulting with Parish Councils about the potential changes to the Core Strategy. It was agreed that there could be benefits in consulting with neighbouring parishes on this issue.
6.2 In the future, there was likely to be a need to review and revise the housing aspects of NDPs, potentially including consultation and independent review, every 2 years.
6.3 It was agreed to recommend to the Parish Council that we reconfirm the current availability of the sites put forward in 2017 and to establish the current ownership. Bill offered to do this as part of his site assessment process.
6.4 There was a discussion on NDP Vision and Objectives around provisional slides presented by Bill.
• It was agreed that Bill would revise the slides with a view to using them as a basis for part of the the upcoming public consultations.
7. Consultants
7.1 Development of the objectives. It was agreed to hold a workshop on 30th January, to be led by Bill and Maxine. This workshop would be used to develop the material for the 2 public consultation events to be held at the end of February.
7.2 It was agreed that the first public consultation event would be held at Walford Village Hall on 22nd February with a second event to be held at Bishopswood Village Hall on 29th February. Chris agreed to request the necessary room bookings and confirm the dates to the Steering Group.
8. Items for next meeting agenda
8.1 Standard agenda items
8.2 Finalise February consultation meetings’ format & content
9. Date of next meeting
TBC 7:00pm at Walford Village Hall.
The Chair closed the meeting at 9.00pm