Thank you to everyone who completed the residents survey in January 2023. We are now analysing the responses and these will feed in directly to the first draft of the revised version of the Neighbourhood Plan (Climate Change SIR Version).
Witchford Neighbourhood Plan was adopted in May 2020 and now forms part of the planning policy regime for Witchford. The Plan sets out where development in the parish is allowed to happen, and does include policies covering biodiversity and green space. However, the world has moved on since 2016 when work started on the Plan, and now we appreciate the need to address climate change issues more directly in the Plan. The Parish Council has adopted an objective of becoming a carbon neutral parish by 2030. Reviewing the Neighbourhood Plan to ensure that development in Witchford addresses climate change works towards that objective.
Over the next few months, we will be looking at the policies in the Plan to see how climate mitigation (measures to prevent the production of climate changing outcomes) and climate resilience (measures to reduce the impact of climate change) can be worked into them without significantly changing the Plan overall. We are not proposing to make any substantial changes to the Plan. This is a Single Issue Review, i.e. looking only at one theme to incorporate it more fully into the Plan.