NEIGHBOURHOOD PLAN
GREENHILL GARDENS
REFERENDUM
What is new in the Neighbourhood Plan??
It is not just about new houses and employment. It also has 2 new innovations
- It is a community led plan. It must be voted in by a public referendum. If this is successful it must be part of the local council planning decisions.
- The concept of Local Green Spaces is introduced. The community can nominate valued spaces that, subject to criteria, are put on the LGS list. They are strongly protected from development in much the same way as Greenbelt.
The right types of developments
In the right place
What happened to Greenhill Gardens????
WTC ruled that the public, not WTC, should nominate the LGS.
Somewhere the message was lost. The nomination for Greenhill Gardens was never submitted.
49 other LGS sites were nominated and accepted.
By the time the omission was discovered the plan was in its final stage (Reg 16) consultation by an independent examiner.
We wrote to him, as did many of our supporters. Thank you!
The examiner was impressed but could not bend the process to add us at this stage.
WTC summed it up
“The examiner is saying their application would meet his criteria but he is unable to include it after the Reg 16 consultation, and neither can we. We as WTC, will commit to including this as part of the update after the Dorset Local Plan is adopted. Meanwhile WTC and DC have no intention to develop the site.”
In the final version of the Neighbourhood Plan that is the subject of the December 11 referendum, we are noted as one of Weymouth’s important assets, but not as an LGS.
What if the Neighbourhood Plan is voted NO in the Referendum on December 11
Almost everyone can find areas of the plan that disappoints or frustrates.
But it is important that the whole plan is not capsized under minor grievances
4 years of work to define development areas for new housing and employment would be lost.
The LGS status for the currently identified 49 sites will be lost.
A new plan will take many months to complete.
What happens to Greenhill Gardens if the Neighbourhood Plan is voted YES
We will get ready for the next Neighbourhood Plan update. This would certainly be 2 years at the earliest, possibly 5.
WTC have formally voted to support our inclusion as an LGS at the next opportunity. There are no plans to develop the site.
We remain protected by the current planning policies on parks and gardens, by conservation area, and by the original covenants.
We also have strong public support.
All this makes it much more difficult for development applications to succeed, even without LGS status.
THE PLAN BELONGS ALL OF US. MAKE SURE YOU VOTE
(Taken from a leaflet compiled by FOGG Trustee Tim Spooner, shared on our website by FOGG Trustee Liz Wilson and does not represent the views of any other individual.)
