Felpham voted ‘Yes’ to the Neighbourhood Plan

The Felpham Neighbourhood Plan went to Referendum on July 2nd. The question was: “Do you want Arun District Council to use the Neighbourhood Plan for Felpham to help it decide planning applications in the neighbourhood area?

There was an 18.67% turnout

As a result, at their Full Council meeting on 16th July 2014, Arun District Council resolved to ‘make’ the Felpham Neighbourhood Development Plan. This means that it has now been brought into legal force and forms part of the statutory Development Plan for Arun District Council.

Decisions on whether or not to grant planning permission in Felpham will now be made in accordance with the Felpham Plan, unless material considerations indicate otherwise.

The responsibility is now on three main groups of people:

• Developers, house builders or home owners to use the Neighbourhood Plan to make their planning applications 
• Felpham Parish Council to ensure that their Planning Committee follows the Neighbourhood Plan in making recommendations to Arun District Council Planning 
• Arun District Council officers to fulfil their legal obligation to use the Felpham Neighbourhood Plan in making planning decisions in Felpham 
• Arun District Council Councillors to ensure that the planning recommendations made by their officers using the Felpham Neighbourhood Plan are acted on by their Planning Committee

The plan is for 18 years and is at the beginning of its life. The Parish Council together with Arun District Council will need to review it over the years. It may want to revise the existing policies, to strengthen them or to introduce new ones. It will need time to gather the evidence. The process for this is still unclear but rest assured your Parish Council will stay on top of things and in due course report back the next stages.

In the meantime thank you to all those who helped produce the plan and all those who turned out to vote. The adopted Felpham Neighbourhood Plan is below or it can be viewed at the Parish Council Office. 

The Plan :

• supports local shops and businesses
• protects open space
• deals with flooding and drainage issues
• maintains the character of the parish
• develops opportunities for sport and leisure
• ensures sufficient health provision
• plans for an ageing population
• manages and improve footways, footpaths and cycleways
• improves traffic management and public transport

Here is the Neighbourhood Plan and supporting documents : 

Neighbourhood Plan 2013-2029 

Basic Conditions Statement

Consultation Statement

The Felpham NP will be monitored by Arun DC on an annual basis and formally reviewed on a five-year cycle or to coincide with the review of the Arun District Council Local Plan if this cycle is different. 

For further documents and maps mentioned in the evidence base go to Key Documents.