Blewbury Neighbourhood Plan

We learnt this week that the site west of Woodway Road will be put forward for planning permission. In preparation for this the developers will carry out  a public consultation exercise and will therefore be distributing a leaflet about their proposals to all Blewbury residents.

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The Blewbury Neighbourhood Plan steering group will be doing a research survey in October to find out about the need for housing within the village.

As you may already know, Blewbury is drawing up a Neighbourhood Plan. This will set out the community’s views on the sort of place they would like the village to be in the future.

The Housing Needs Survey will provide some of the evidence that is needed for the plan. It will help to find out what demand there is for new housing from within Blewbury and what sort of accommodation might be required. We will also be seeking your opinions on local amenities and infrastructure within the village. There are more details of the Survey here.

The Neighbourhood Plan is an important opportunity to shape our future for the better – but we need to hear from all sections of the community. Although the survey is voluntary, a high response rate is essential and we very much hope your household will choose to take part.

Volunteers will be carrying out the survey from late September and throughout October. A questionnaire will be hand delivered to each household, together with detailed instructions on how to complete it and who to contact if help is needed.

We are still looking for people to help with delivery and collection. If you are interested in volunteering, two training sessions are being held at the village hall, on 17 September at 8pm and 21 September at 4pm (contact Nick Chancellor to register for one of the sessions – O7935 54697l).

We are on the hunt for a few more volunteers to help distribute the Neighbourhood Development Plan Survey sometime in October.  There are close to 800 houses to cover and so if we can count on a few more of us, it certainly lightens the workload.  Full training will be given to all survey volunteers in September, prior to the launch of the survey.

If you feel you could give some of your time to us, please email anne@annemillman.co.uk before the 31st July 2014.

And thanks to all who’ve volunteered so far – your support is much appreciated!

The Blewbury Neighbourhood Plan launch event on 8 March 2014 was fantastically supported, with over 240 people attending the afternoon or evening sessions. We have now had a chance to analyse the feedback from the launch event. A full compilation of the comments collected may be found here (pdf).

We gathered further feedback at the Green May Fair on 10 May. In early autumn we will be doing a survey covering every household in the village.

Summarised briefly, and in no particular order:

1.  We greatly value the sense of community in our village.
2. We appreciate the wide variety of people from a wide range of socio-demographic backgrounds living here, and we want to maintain this diversity.
3.  Our community identity is influenced by size and shape of the village.
4.  A number of frustrations also came to light, including transport, parking and particularly drainage.
5.  There are divergent views on best types of sites for new development – ranging from the edge of village to in-fill sites.
6.  We appreciate and want to preserve our remaining village shops, and potentially make more out of some of these locations.
7.  We love our footpaths!
8.  There are two camps in the street lights debate, with the majority wanting to remain in the dark!
9.  We want to provide more housing suitable for the elderly within the village.

Please make sure you have your say – whether in the household survey, or at any time via the Your Comments section of the website.

We  are on our way!

We have reached the second milestone on our route to a complete Neighbourhood Plan. If you look at the Roadmap page you will see we have reached the second flag: “Neighbourhood Area”.

It all takes a long while. There are many formalities to go through – on November 25th last year Blewbury Parish Council requested that “the Vale of White Horse District Council designates the area contained within the parish boundary of Blewbury as a Neighbourhood Plan area as provided for by the Localism Act 2012.”

And on March 10th this year the senior planning officer for VWHDC wrote to our Parish Council to tell them “I am pleased to inform you that the Blewbury area designation, as submitted 26 November 2013, was approved by the Vale of White Horse District Council Cabinet Member on 28 February 2014.

You can read the application and replies either on the VWHDC  website Blewbury Neighbourhood Plan page, or read/download them below:

(All pdf files open in new windows. You can download them onto your computer if you want to keep a copy)

Blewbury Neighbourhood Planning Application

Blewbury NDP publication report

Letter of confirmation for area designation

Blewbury Area Consultation Plan

Map of the entire Neighbourhood Plan area:

Click on the image to see it full size
(opens in a new window).

BNDP area map

The launch event for the Blewbury Neighbourhood Development Plan on Saturday 8th March was a resounding success! With attendance numbers hitting 200, we had an extremely busy and successful launch. Villagers, made up of youngsters, the elderly and everyone in between, came to hear about the project, and air their views on a number of different aspects of the village.

We kicked off with an excellent supper, followed by a short fun quiz on Blewbury led by Elphin Lloyd-Jones.  Discussion groups then followed; tables were hosted by facilitators who took notes on firstly what people liked/disliked about the village at the moment, and secondly their opinions on what Blewbury should look like 20 years on.

The second half of the evening saw Dermot Matthias, Chair of the Steering Committee, introduce representatives from the villages of Woodcote and Drayton who spoke candidly of their experiences in producing their plans.  It was really valuable to listen to the experiences of other communities, particularly so that we can avoid making similar, time-consuming mistakes.

The event was finally wrapped up with a particularly vocal Q&A session where there were plenty of queries about the operation of the plan and also some interesting insights provided. A report will be produced from the facilitator’s notes and this will be available on this website in due course. If you were not able to attend this meeting, fear not. There will be more events as the plan progresses and many more opportunities for further discussions!

Do you use Facebook regularly?  If so you might find it easier to keep up-dated on the latest developments via our new Facebook Group.  You’ll get the latest news as well as the opportunity to pose questions, comment on other’s posts, etc.  Please click here to join!

Our launch event kicks off on Saturday 8^th March.  The event is free and will provide an opportunity for group discussions, with presentations from planning experts where you can share your views.  Supper and a free glass of wine is included, followed by a cash bar.  This event is limited to 200 places so please book in advance.  

Event Details:

Date: Saturday 8^th March

Time: Afternoon Display – 2pm – 4pm with tea and biscuits

Evening Event – 7.30pm until approximately 10pm

With free supper and first glass of wine/beer (cash bar thereafter)

Event is limited to 200 places so please book in advance.

To register please fill in the leaflet insert in the last Blewbury Bulletin and drop it into the post office.  Alternatively email:  blewburyndp@outlook.com