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What is a Neighbourhood Plan?

The Lakenheath Neighbourhood Plan will enable us to shape and influence planning strategy in the Parish over the next couple of decades. It will cover the whole parish (click here to view the map).  

The Plan cannot run contrary to the National Planning Policy Framework or West Suffolk District Council’s Local Plan but, within these constraints, our Plan will be as broad or as narrow as we, as a Parish, want it to be. As well as having a say about housing development, we want our Neighbourhood Plan to capture, for example, how we want to improve nature conservation, recreation, traffic management and building design in the village.

What are the benefits of a Neighbourhood Plan?

Once a Plan has been approved by a formal Parish referendum it will have the same legal force as the District’s Local Plan and carry statutory weight.  It must be used by WSDC when determining planning applications in the village.

In development applications for housing, a Neighbourhood Plan will continue to hold even where a District Council’s Local Plan is out of date or under challenge in the courts provided it (i) has been adopted within two years and (ii) contains policies and allocations to meet its identified housing requirement. We already have a Housing Needs Assessment, funded by central Government and produced by AECOM, a consultancy used by many local government bodies, including both Suffolk County and West Suffolk District Councils.

AECOM has also been commissioned to produce a Design Code, which will determine what any future developments should look like, and we have an application in for further work around High Street regeneration.

The Neighbourhood Plan will inform potential developers and those opposed to individual developments. The appraisal process should therefore be more consistent, rigorous and less emotive. It will produce a more detailed and up-to-date view for national and local government as to how we want our community to develop.

A Plan will enable us to secure resources that might not otherwise be available. A clear objective in the Plan will be more likely to secure funding than a free-standing and diffuse aspiration.

What won’t the Plan deliver?

The Plan cannot stop all housing development in Lakenheath and nearly 700 houses already have Planning Permission. Instead it should ensure that future development is better tuned to Lakenheath’s needs, uses materials that fit in with the fabric of the Parish and occurs at locations considered most suitable by the community.

In itself a Neighbourhood Plan doesn’t guarantee funding for health, leisure, travel or educational facilities; however a strong vote in favour of retaining or enhancing existing resources would be a powerful lobbying tool with local Government, charities and other funding sources.

How did we deliver a NP?

We have set up a Project Group to lead the work. The Group includes a District Councillor, Parish Councillors and residents. Its terms of reference and current membership are available on this website. Minutes of meetings will be published here too.

There are several stages involve in writing a Neighbourhood Plan:

Stage 1                      Designation of Neighbourhood Area
Stages 2 to 4             Information Gathering
Stage 5                      Pre-Submission Consultation on Draft Plan
Stage 6                      Submission of amended Plan to West Suffolk Council and further Consultation by                                    West Suffolk Council
Stage 7                      Independent Examination of Plan
Stage 8                      Post-Examination Modifications
Stage 9                      Parish Referendum
Stage 10                    Making (Adoption) of Plan by West Suffolk Council

The Group will constantly seek your views on the things that matter to you as Lakenheath residents. We have conducted a Survey (click here for headlines) and this has generated a number of projects looking at what you have said and what we can do about it. The results of this work will be presented at a Drop-in session in August and undoubtedly some of the options will be become “Community Actions” within the Plan.

But please don’t wait for us to come to you; if you have views about what needs protecting and what needs changing in the village or want to get involved in work to produce our Plan let us know now. You can email from here or speak to Gerald Kelly, the Group Chair, on 07968 396389

Ultimately a Neighbourhood Plan for Lakenheath will only succeed if it reflects what the majority of residents want, feel comfortable with and – crucially - are prepared to vote for.