The Parish Council was shocked and disappointed that late last night (1st October) a Consultation on a proposed Supplementary Planning Document (*) was launched by Rushcliffe Borough Council (RBC).
Despite Rushcliffe Borough Council having nearly ten years to prepare for this consultation, the Parish Council was not informed by RBC before the publication, indeed coming after the end of the working day councillors learnt about it from the media.
The Parish Council thinks that the way that the Consultation has been arranged is totally unacceptable and has written to RBC to express those very strong concerns. You can see a copy of our letter below.
Our main concerns are;
1. The consultation is set to run for five weeks, two of which are half term – far too short a time for people to feed in usefully
2. No information has been provided to residents either through their doors or in local venues like the pub, post-office or church halls.
3. There is a single public meeting arranged, not even in Tollerton, despite our many suitable meeting venues.
4. The Parish Council does not meet during the period of the consultation so we are not able to bring residents together to discuss these proposals in public
When we have a response to our letter we will update and in the meantime, in parallel with this, we are preparing a full response to the Consultation and will share this with residents in due course.
The Parish Council is committed to ensuring that the voice of local people is heard loudly and clearly regarding building on the Airport site. This consultation from RBC will not achieve that and we work with local residents to fix it.
(*) What is a Supplementary Planning Document?
An SPD is sometimes called a “Masterplan” for a development which RBC has committed to putting in place prior to determining any planning applications for development. The SPD details the future location of development types within the allocation, how they relate to one another as well as design codes for different character areas within the site. The SPD will also set out the required infrastructure for the development of the site as a whole.
The SPD expands upon the local plan and sets further rules for planning applications to be decided against. It is not a planning application, but is a very important part of the process and it is crucially important that the views of residents are understood and listened to and that Rushcliffe Borough Council do not just pay lip service to residents who take the time to comment.