The Plan has been drawn up by a steering group of local representatives and aims to set out the local community's planning vision for the development of Dawlish Parish over the next 20 years.
"Positive changes will help local people of all ages be able to live and work in the area, improve prosperity and well-being, regenerate the town centre, support tourism, and protect valued open space and important nature conservation interests," says the Plan.
The Plan makes provision for 900 new homes to be built in the Parish, about 270 of which will be affordable homes. It also outlines that land should be used for new employment land and a range of community facilities. The Plan is line with Teignbridge District Council's draft core strategy with regard to the number of new homes it proposes, but some of the locations allocated for residential and employment uses differ from those set out in Teignbridge's core strategy.
If the inspector approves the Plan it will be put to a local referendum which will decide whether Teignbridge Council has to adopt it. If the Plan is adopted it will become part of the local statutory development plan and will form the basis for determining planning applications in the Dawlish Parish area.
In April 2011 Dawlish Parish was selected as one of 17 neighbourhood planning front runners who, led by Local Authorities, were selected to prepare draft neighbourhood plans and Neighbourhood Development Orders.
“Many in the development industry will view the Dawlish Parish Neighbourhood Plan as a positive step towards delivering localism in that it does not seek to reduce the volume of residential development allocated to the area in the Local Planning Authority’s emerging core strategy,” said Jamie Lockerbie, a planning expert at Pinsent Masons, the law firm behind Out-Law.com.
“It will be interesting to see how the inspector considers the issue of the emerging core strategy’s allocated sites being re-located particularly given that the core strategy does not, at this point in time, form part of the Local Planning Authority’s development plan and, if the Plan proceeds to adoption, how the Local Planning Authority respond to this in the remaining stages prior to adoption of the core strategy," he said.
Editor's note 17/04/12: The story was updated with a quote from Jamie Lockerbie.
