Parish priorities and action plan

When the government introduced neighbourhood plans in the Localism Act of 2011 and laid down the very demanding requirements for them in 2016, our parish council (PC) - like 2/3 of the parishes in the South Downs National Park - decided it did not have the resources or the need to produce one. However, the 2023 Levelling-up and Regeneration Bill introduced a much less proscribed and onerous way for parishes to set out their visions for the future and to inform their local planning authorities. The South Downs National Park Authority actively encouraged parishes to do so - to contribute to the imminent review of its Local Plan and to funding and other policy decisions – and emphasised that "community engagement is key"

Our PC therefore decided to produce a parish priorities statement and to use a survey of all residents to ensure that it reflected their views. This decision, and the planned survey, was publicised in the PC's annual report to residents (which was hand delivered to every household), at its annual parish meeting, in the parish magazine and on its website.

The survey received responses from an estimated 25% of all residents and 36% of all households and came out with very clear priorities of the community, which the parish council then incorporated into an initial parish priorities statement.

This was submitted to the SDNPA on 17th October and is available by clicking on the image below - it includes links to the survey report and to the associated Parish sustainability charter.

At its meeting on 10 January 2024, the parish council approved an initial action plan drafted by the priorities task group based on the residents survey, and intended to put the community's priorities at the centre of its work and to incorporate some of the wealth of comments and suggestions included in the survey responses.

As part of the plan, parish council members agreed to lead one action plan team each and to recruit non-PC members to join their team, in an attempt to broaden the input and resources of the teams. The teams so far recruited are shown on the "Who we are . . " page HERE