Melvin Reynolds, Chair of the Plan Steering Group, told the Ross Gazette that there are three main reasons for Ross-on-Wye Town Council to undertake a Neighbourhood Development Plan – they are related to new developments. He said that if a community can agree where it wishes to place new homes it can avoid lengthy battles with would-be developers over proposals for unsuitable sites; with a plan in place the legal assumption is that the developments will happen firstly in the allocated places – assuming enough land is made available.

Secondly, it can enable a community to find the best option for accommodating new development. The 900 homes required of Ross may put pressure on public services and infrastructure, but Melvin said: “We have no option about the number the town has to take. Indeed, although that number are already built or have permission, the numbers will be increased by government, so a contingency of about 10%-15% is needed (about an extra 90 – 135 homes). The Ross plan is seeking to make the “least bad” job of addressing that contingency.”

Thirdly, Melvin continues to say that developers of larger sites are required to make a contribution to the Local Authority toward local service and infrastructure provision. At present this, in Herefordshire, is through so-called ‘section 106’ agreements; the Local Authority is not required to share this contribution with the parish in which a development is made. However, use of this old regime of contribution is now very unusual and almost all Local Authorities use the newer Community Infrastructure Levy (CIL) system. Under this arrangement a parish gets a 15% share of the CIL contribution – or 25% if there is a Neighbourhood Plan in place for the parish. The attraction of this is obvious – and one of the main reasons that Ross’ Town Council made the investment of effort and finance in a Neighbourhood Plan. The fact that Herefordshire Council has not yet implemented CIL is, perhaps unsurprisingly, a source of some contention between it and the members of the Market Towns Forum and the Herefordshire Association of Local Councils.

To put that into context it is worth getting an understanding of the overall process of producing a Neighbourhood Plan. It can be seen that there was, due to bureaucratic holdups, a long delay in moving from approval to undertake a plan to actually starting work. From then work went rapidly and smoothly with a good level of consensus being exhibited at the various consultation events. Then work was delayed (in Stage 4) while there was a debate about the need, or not, for a replacement for Ashfield Park Primary School. Eventually Herefordshire Council agreed that no decision would be made – which left work on the Plan free to progress. Since then work has proceeded well and the Plan is currently at the end of Stage 5. However, there are a number of steps that the Neighbourhood Plan has to go through before it can be considered for examination and finally be approved.See this week’s paper for more stories like this, available in shops and as a Digital Edition now.