Who? What? Why?

 

Who?

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Where there is a town or parish council, they will always be the qualifying body that will take forward an NDP. Melksham Town Council and Melksham Without Parish Council are the qualifying bodies for Melksham Plan, but the process of preparing the Plan is being driven by a Steering Group of representatives from the Town and Parish as well as the wider community. The Steering Group is a body of people managing, lead and working on the Melksham Area Neighbourhood Plan. 

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Steering Group Members:

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The Steering Group comprises of 10 permanent voting members comprising of:

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• Two representatives of Melksham Without Parish Council (2 of 3)
      Cllr Richard Wood
      Cllr John Glover
      Cllr David Pafford
   

• Two representatives of Melksham Town Council
      Cllr Saffi Rabey and
      Cllr Simon Crundell
   

• One representative from Melksham Area Board
      Cllr Phil Alford
   

• One representative from Melksham Community Area Partnership
      Chris Holden
   

• One representative from the business community
      Colin Harrison, Chair of Melksham Chamber
   

• One representative for environmental and climate change interests
      Shirley McArthy, Melksham Climate Emergency Group
   

• One representative for transport
      Rolf Brindle
   

• One representative from the community
      Mike Sankey

 

In addition, the following Council Officers will attend where appropriate in an advisory and non voting capacity

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• One representative from Wiltshire Council’s Spatial Planning Team
      David Way
   

• Melksham Town Clerk
      Linda Roberts
   

• Melksham Without Parish Clerk
      Teresa Strange
   

• Melksham Without Parish Officer
      Lorraine McRandle

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What?

 

A Neighbourhood Plan is about the use and development of land, setting out a vision, aims and planning policies, together with priorities for the future development of the Plan Area.

 

Producing a Neighbourhood Plan has advantages over other kinds of plan (such as parish or community plans) because Neighbourhood Plans have real legal force. Through a Neighbourhood Plan, communities can take more of a lead in shaping future development as the Plan will become part of the statutory development plan for the area (currently the Wiltshire Core Strategy) and when adopted, must be used by Wiltshire when making decisions about planning applications in our plan area.

 

Why?

The Vision of the Neighbourhood Plan is to make the Town of Melksham and the Parish of Melksham Without great places to live, to work, to play and to visit: attractive, healthy, convenient and environmentally sustainable, with access to employment, education, shops and services via walking, cycling and public transport.

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Through our Neighbourhood Plan, we can set out planning policies that flow from our community vision for the future of our area and are used to express intent and to guide decisions about the vision set out in our neighbourhood plan.

The policies in our neighbourhood plan will carry legal weight when decisions on planning applications are made.