Telford & Wrekin Council receive grants for Neighbourhood Planning projects

The funds have been allocated to each parish - Waters Upton, Madeley and Ercall Magna – which were nominated as partners with Telford & Wrekin Council in making a bid to the Neighbourhood Planning Front Runners Scheme earlier this year.

Waters Upton, Madeley and Ercall Magna Parish Councils will be among the first in the country to take part in this new Neighbourhood Planning scheme, putting Telford & Wrekin at the forefront of this new approach to local planning. The three parishes are quite different and the new plans will allow them to consider their very varied issues.

Telford & Wrekin Council as the local planning authority already prepares an overarching plan for the borough, but the opportunity for parishes to prepare a Neighbourhood Plan is new. Under the Neighbourhood Planning Front Runners scheme, the three parishes, supported by the Council, are able to begin work preparing a neighbourhood development plan in advance of the new statutory provisions for neighbourhood planning being introduced through the Government’s Localism Bill (expected to receive Royal Assent at the end of the year).

As a Co-operative Council, Telford & Wrekin will seek to build a new partnership between local people and public services where power and responsibility is more balanced – agreeing what Telford & Wrekin Council will provide, and what residents and communities will control for themselves, where appropriate.

In taking part in the Neighbourhood Planning Front Runners scheme, Telford & Wrekin Council is demonstrating its commitment to working as a “Co-operative Council”, putting this into practice in working together with our residents, partners and local organisations. Through Neighbourhood Planning, Telford & Wrekin Council is enabling people to do more to help their own communities and to gain new skills and experience.

Cllr Charles Smith, Cabinet Member for Housing, Regeneration and Economic Development, said: “The preparation of Neighbourhood Development Plans is to give communities the opportunity to have a greater say in how their area is developed.

“The Neighbourhood Plans for Waters Upton, Madeley and Ercall Magna Parish Councils are now beginning preparation. These will be new statutory documents, created by the community, to set out development policies and proposals for their areas. It is excellent news, for the borough, that we are once again at the cutting edge of new ways of working, and in particularly because these new plans value and enhance the contribution of local people in developing and setting the future for their own communities, which is at the heart of co-operative councils.”