Marks Tey Parish Neighbourhood Plan
The Neighbourhood Plan’s referendum in March 2022 marked the end of over 5 years of dedicated work by a voluntary steering group and its consultant. Thanks to the considerable majority who voted in support of the Plan it is now part of Colchester Borough Council’s new Local Plan. This means the Council will use it as the yardstick when examining all planning applications affecting Marks Tey, so the granting of consent happens only when the proposals comply with the Parish Councils 15 policies. In due course, when the Plan becomes out of date, the Parish Council will have the task of creating its successor.
The Plan and its supporting documents
The Plan has a number of supporting reports but is the central document, setting out in detail these policies and how they grew out of many conversations with local people. These reports are:
1. The Character Assessment. This a most valuable history of the parish over many centuries and has the details which underpin much of the Plan.
2) The Master Plan. This helped to turn the vision of a draft Plan into practical policies.
3) The Consultation Statement. This has two parts, one being a description of how the Plan came into being from when the Parish Council agreed that it needed one to give some protection against large scale development, the other being a summary of the comments and criticisms sent in by local people, public agencies, voluntary bodies and landowners.
4) The Basic Conditions Statement. this technical planning document shows how the draft Plan has been drawn up in accordance with relevant planning laws and regulations.
5) The Appendices. These contain details of everything done related to the draft Plan: all the surveys, consultations and dates of activities
6) The SEA screening document. This states that the draft Plan does not need a Strategic Environmental Assessment.
Colchester Borough Council Documents
Colchester Borough Council’s planning website has the Plan and its own collection of documents:
7) Information Statement, with details of the referendum
8) The independent examiner’s report on the draft Plan
9) Summary of the representations the Parish Council submitted to the examiner
10) Conditions & compliance statement
11) Statement of information about planning
12) Declaration of result of poll (the referendum)
13) Colchester Borough Council’s adoption decision statement
14) Marks Tey sustainability statement
How the Parish Council & Colchester Borough Council will be using the Plan
Now the Plan is in place, both councils will judge all future local planning applications in terms of how closely they reflect the policies in the Plan and enforce changes where they fall short. To do this the Parish Council is setting up a Planning Committee, supervising a Neighbourhood Plan Monitoring Group of Councillors and volunteers to undertake this monitoring role. The Parish Council has stored the records off all the original steering group meeting minutes, dating back to 2015.
Neighbourhood Plan Summary of policies