The purpose and value of Neighbourhood Plans is explained on the GOV.UK web site. You can see our aims for the Chesham Neighbourhood Plan in more detail below.
We are proposing to create NDOs. What are NDOs and what will this look like for Chesham?
Neighbourhood Plan Environmental Survey - now closed, results coming soon.
Great Response to the first Neighbourhood Plan consultation - find out more.
See the key results from the March-April 2022 consultation.
If you'd like to be kept up to date with progress on the plan, or be invited to take part in consultations, please let us know here.
The Town Council has commissioned Create Streets to provide urban design and community engagement expertise that will be essential to the success of the Neighbourhood Development Orders (NDOs) as part of the overall Neighbourhood Plan. The overarching aim of this project is to make it easier to create better, more beautiful, more sustainable development (and correspondingly harder to impose bad development) to take the pressure off the greenbelt and to make Chesham an even better and more prosperous place.
Create Streets are an influential urban design consultancy and social enterprise, with an associated charity, that exists to help communities to create beautiful, sustainable places and in doing so help ease the housing crisis. Create Streets are working alongside our Neighbourhood Planning consultants, oneill homer. They are being supported by Civic Engineers (civil and structural engineers) and Altorus (cost consultants).
The project’s first stage (‘engage wide’) was launched in summer 2022: an online map to discover places and buildings that people like, don’t like and would wish to improve. This has helped inform the design of new buildings and streets. The next stage will be running in person workshops (‘engage deep’) to establish design principles. To enable a simple design, planning and development process, Create Streets will produce what is known as a “design code” This will set out building types, materials, street types, street greenery, etc. This will essentially be a ‘toolkit’ that can be applied to sites across the town. The building types and styles will be rooted in the character of Chesham and will be co-created with the local community, ensuring they are appropriate for the Town.
Once adopted, the CNP will sit alongside any future Local Plan and provide a framework for deciding planning applications in Chesham until 2036. It will also ensure the town council receives the higher rate of 25% of Community Infrastructure Levy contributions from developers to fund local infrastructure and community projects.