Copdock and Washbrook
Parish Council
Parish Council
Parish Council
This section is devoted to the Copdock and Washbrook Neighbourhood Plan - https://www.babergh.gov.uk/w/copdock-washbrook-neighbourhood-plan
What is neighbourhood planning?
Neighbourhood planning gives communities the ability to develop a shared vision for their neighbourhood and shape the development and growth of their local area. More information about Neighbourhood Plans generally can be found on the Babergh District Council website.
Neighbourhood planning enables communities to play a stronger role in shaping the development of areas in which they live. It provides the opportunity for communities to set out a positive vision for how they want their community to develop over the next 15- 20 years in ways that meet identified local need and make sense for local people.
If a Neighbourhood Plan is adopted by a local community, planning officials at Babergh District Council are obliged to take its content into account when reviewing any planning applications that come forward from landowners who have offered their sites for development.
Without a Plan, no such obligation exists. Recent trends have shown that more weight is being given by Council Planning Officials to the content of local Plans.
In addition, communities that take a proactive approach by drawing up a Neighbourhood Plan which secures the support of local people in a referendum, will benefit from 25% of the revenues from the Community Infrastructure Levy arising from any development that takes place in their area.
Having passed through all of the local consultation phases, the Copdock & Washbrook Neighbourhood Plan has been formally submitted to Babergh District Council. A final phase of consultation was concluded in June 2024 and the Plan has now been submitted to an External Examiner who assesses whether the Plan meets all of the technical criteria laid down by the Government.
Once the Examination has been concluded, it is anticipated that the Plan will be offered to local people via a Referendum by the end of 2024.
The Copdock and Washbrook Neighbourhood Plan 2023 - 2037 Submission Draft Plan - March 2024 can be viewed here.
Updates on the progress of the Plan through these final stages will be issued on this website and via the Councils Facebook page.
The proposed Plan differs from the previous Plan in one fundamental aspect. Unlike before, the proposed Plan does not allocate any sites for future development. The Council believes that with relatively small “infill” developments already agreed and in the planning “pipeline” at Taylors Farm (21), behind the Hotel (9) and behind the White House at the southern end of the Old London Road (9), it will meet the housing needs currently identified. The Parish Council is strongly opposed to large scale developments that would destroy the character of the community and regards the retention of our village identity as its primary and most important objective.
The JLP is BMSDC’s development blueprint for the entire District covering the period 2018-2037. The original version having been rejected by Government Inspectors in 2022, it is currently undergoing a redraft and is likely to appear for consultation in 2025.
It is important because it is this Plan that will set housing allocations and distribution across the District until 2037. The Parish Council believes that it is important to have an adopted Neighbourhood Plan in place before BMSDC's blueprint is issued due to the obligation it will place upon BMSDC to take into account the wishes of the local community when deciding the scale and distribution of new housing developments.
More information about BMSDC’s JLP can be found here
For any questions about the C&W Neighbourhood Plan please email Sue Frankis at clerk@copdockandwashbrook.org
