Bentworth Parish Neighbourhood Plan

Just before Christmas we advised parishioners that East Hampshire District Council (EHDC) had published a new draft Local Plan for 2017-36. This would mean a reduction in the minimum of number of dwellings required of Bentworth to six, compared with the previous allocation of “about twelve”. We and other parishes with emerging Neighbourhood Plans are, however, encouraged to produce site allocations that go beyond the minimum requirement. The EHDC plan is still a draft and will not be finalized till 2020.

We have now been encouraged by EHDC to comment on the draft Local Plan. We need to do this during the six-week consultation period from 5th February to 19th March. For more information about the EHDC draft Local Plan, see the “simple guide” to the plan.

For those who want to read the full draft Local Plan, this can be found here. The sections relating to Bentworth are on pages 41 and 132.

EHDC are holding drop-in meetings around the district. Members of the Parish Council and Neighbourhood Plan Steering Committee are planning to attend one of these meetings and we would encourage all parishioners to do the same. This will give anyone interested the opportunity to find out more about the draft Local Plan and about how they can feed in their own comments if they want to do so.

The times and venues for the EHDC open meetings are as follows:

Ropley Parish Hall – Tuesday 5th February – 15:30-20:30
Bentley Memorial Hall – Friday 15th February – 15:30-20:30
Medstead Village Hall – Friday 8th March – 15:30-20:30
Alton Maltings – Friday 15th March – 15:30-20:30

Parishioners are free to feed in responses direct to EHDC, but we would encourage them to keep us informed. You can do this by sending an email
to neighbourhoodplan@bentworthparishcouncil.org

We will continue to keep you posted as the process evolves.

Boyd McCleary
Co-ordinator, Bentworth Parish Neighbourhood Plan Steering Committee

[Please note that this message is not posted on behalf of Bentworth Parish Council and does not necessarily reflect the Parish Council’s policy]