The Forum’s open meeting on July 2nd agreed to the start of an two month public consultation from July 8th to September 8th on our Draft Neighbourhood Plan 2026-40. This ‘Pre submission Consultation version’ of the Plan can be read and downloaded below:
This is the statutory Regulation 14 consultation which the Forum is required to carry out. All responses, and how the Forum intends to address these, will be incorporated in a Consultation Statement. A further and final Draft Plan will then be submitted to OPDC, with changes resulting from the consultation. This ‘submission version’ will be accompanied by the Consultation Statement and a Basic Conditions Statement.
OPDC is then required to undertake their own six week ‘publicity’ consultation via their website, to widen awareness of the Draft Neighbourhood Plan and its proposed policies and site allocations.
We are still at odds with OPDC officers on the methodology they have used to come up with their proposed Indicative Housing Requirement for the Draft Plan. This identifies five development sites lying within the neighbourhood area. Four of these are not sites allocated in the 2022 Local Plan (the exception being the Lords site at Channel Gate)
Map of the five development sites proposed in the Draft Oak Neighbourhood Plan
These sitesare however amongst the seven ‘Phase 1’ development plots packaged together as the proposed first set of developments identified for those potential master development partners currently choosing whether to bid to be selected as OPDC’s ‘joint venture partner’ from early 2027. The joint venture arrangement is expected to last several decades and potentially to 2050.
The seven development sites proposed by OPDC for ‘early delivery’ by a chosen joint venture partner
OPDC has acknowledged that For avoidance of doubt, OPDC is not relying on the Masterplan Framework to underpin the IHR (Indicative Housing Requirement) methodology or the minimum indicative housing requirement for the Old Oak Neighbourhood Plan. The Masterplan Framework is not a statutory planning document, and we are glad to see that this position has been accepted by OPDC.
OPDC instead argue that that same four sites feature in a 2021 Development Capacity Study and ‘therefore form part of the Local Plan‘. We believe this to be legally incorrect. The independent Examiner of the Draft Neighbourhood Plan is likely to need to adjudicate on this issue, further down the line.