Goodrich and Welsh Bicknor Group Parish Council has just received confirmation that its request for a Neighbourhood Area Designation has been accepted by Herefordshire Council, enabling the establishment of a Steering Group of local volunteers to guide the process and combined efforts of local residents to produce a Neighbourhood Development Plan, which is likely to take almost two years to complete.

The function of the Neighbourhood Development Plan is to enable local people to ‘have their voice’ heard in decisions about how they would like their village and community to develop over the next 15 - 20 years. It considers; Housing, Tourism, Employment and Local Economy, Community, Leisure and Sport, Natural Environment, Heritage and Built Environment, Public Rights of Way, Roads and Transport as the key themes.

One of the most important aspects of the NDP is wide community involvement in the process. A dedicated NDP website has been established to enable fast communication and public disclosure at https://goodrichneighbourhoodplan.wordpress.com/ along with a Facebook Community Page: goodrichcommunitynoticeboard and the more traditional forms of communication via Email, leaflets and very importantly, word-of-mouth.

Their aim is to hold the first Public NDP Consultation Event over the first weekend of December 2016 in Goodrich Village Hall. To achieve this they now need to ask for additional volunteers to help investigation into the key themes, which will then be enhanced by wider community discussions and input into the next stage of the process. If you are able to help in any way with the key themes or to add your views on other aspects of the NDP, please get in touch. The website has all of the relevant contact details.

“Producing the NDP is going to be a long and complex task but it’s definitely worth the effort and it’s made much easier by many hands”, said Adam Fletcher, Parish Council, Vice Chairman, “I’m very grateful for the fantastic support the Parish Council has received over the last few weeks but we now need to ‘raise our game’ and will need even more help and wider community effort to help complete successfully, on time, to help shape the future of the Parish!”