These documents are relatively new forms of Planning Guidance control that have been encouraged by successive Governments. They enable, through the Parish Council, a local Neighbourhood Plan group to formulate policies which affect the area of the Plan and to allocate the uses they would wish to see for housing, employment, open space and other uses within that area. They are generally Grant-funded and prepared by an experienced Planning Officer.
Public participation is encouraged, however there are strict deadlines for comments, objections and support for the planning aims of any emerging Neighbourhood Plan.
A strict series of regulations set out the process and if the Plan has reached a stage whereby observations have not been made by Regulation 16, the Plan in any event will move forward to independent examination and you may not have the opportunity to make any comments or observations and be confined or equally given an opportunity by the terms of what will then become the Adopted Plan following a village referendum.
It is vital that an eye is kept on emerging Neighbourhood Plans, existing ones and their status, prior to making a planning application. P.P.S. can assist in all of these regards and certainly in making support or opposition statements based on Town and Country Planning grounds.