Minutes of Steering Group Meeting, Kidmore End Parish NDP Steering Group
19th March 2019 at 7.30pm at Kidmore End Parish Rooms
- Declaration of interest
Sue Biggs declared an interest as she lives in Tokers Green Lane close to CFS 8.
Mike Bishop declared that the boundary of his property is close to CFS 10.
Anna Cronin-Scott declared that her house is close to CFS 4.
2. Minutes of last meeting and matters arising
The final version of the minutes of the last meeting was approved.
3. Closed session
4. Review of terms of reference
The Steering Group confirmed agreement with the terms of reference.
5. Discussion of village boundaries
SODC have asked whether the Steering Group would like to consider identifying boundaries for the villages in Kidmore End Parish for inclusion in our NDP. This is in response to recent action taken by other villages in South Oxfordshire to identify their boundary. The potential benefit of this would be to protect the villages from unrestricted growth. The decision on whether to identify settlement boundaries would only be applicable for the villages that are classified as smaller or other in the settlement hierarchy in the draft local plan. SODC need to know whether Settlement Boundaries will be in the Kidmore End plan as part of the assessment of whether we will need a Strategic Environmental Assessment.
Action:
Further investigation on the implications and, if deemed appropriate, suggest a boundary / boundaries.
6. Housing Allocation
At the January meeting the Steering Group took a vote in principle to include a housing allocation in the NDP. This was in line with advice from SODC that the NDP would be considered more robust. Not everyone was present at the meeting, however more than 7 members voted including one Parish Councillor, which is line with requirements set out in the Terms of Reference.
7. Site Option and Assessment Report and Facilitation Report
SODC have been asked to respond to a query made by the Steering Group to Aecom regarding land within the AONB area. The Steering Group are currently waiting for SODC to communicate with Aecom and await their and Aecom’s response.
Locality haves asked for feedback on the support package that was approved by them and delivered by Aecom.
Action:
Request further information on the purpose of this feedback from SODC.
8. Discussion on skeletal topic paper from SODC
SODC have recommended that the Steering Group complete a topic paper explaining how all the information gathered to date has been obtained and considered, including the household survey, the Facilitation Report and the Site Option and Assessment Report. Concern was raised about the amount of work required to create a robust topic paper and whether this work duplicated the work needed to create the NDP itself. Concern that as the SODC local plan is only a draft document that the policies within this could change and this may subsequently make the topic paper out of date and not valid.
Action:
To ask SODC for details of who else has written a topic paper and to clarify the risk of writing one based on information available at the current moment in time compared to the risk of producing one at a later date or not having one at all.
9. Process for providing the reports to Landowners
As part of the Call for Sites process the Steering Group have been advised by SODC that if a site is allocated within the NDP then the Site Option and Assessment Report should be published and then landowners would be asked for any comments. This has been delayed for two main reasons. The first is that the Steering Group do not have sufficient clarity from SODC regarding the skeleton topic report which is intended to set out the decision making process and related activities concerning housing and site allocation. Secondly, the group are awaiting further research from SODC. Without this information, the Steering Group are not in a position to move forward.
Action:
To continue to liaise with SODC regarding the outstanding information.
10. Information on the website
As per point 10 above, the Steering Group felt it does not currently have the required information from SODC to enable an update on the Call for Sites process to be published on the website.
As an interim measure it was suggested that the Steering Group keep the community updated through the parish newsletter by outlining the progress that has been made over the last year.
Action:
To write an update for submission in the upcoming publication of the parish newsletter and to also put this on noticeboards.
11. Update and further planning on public event
Due to pending information from SODC outlined in the points above, the committee agreed that it is premature to hold a public event at this time.
12. Policy
Group requested that extra resource is allocated to the policy sub-group. One member has resigned and was the lead on the policy group.Two group members offered to be on this sub group.
Action:
A summary document will be created with the policies in bullet form to ask for feedback from Aecom.
13. AOB:
Action:
Due to the delay of the public consultation, it was agreed that chair would return the current funding provided for this purpose from Groundworks.
The group thanked the person who has resigned from the Steering Group. Thanking them for all their hard work.
Short discussion on need for more members to be recruited into group
14. Date of next meeting
The next meeting is scheduled for 7th May.