Update January 2025: The Neighbourhood Plan is now with the external examiner whom we expect to hear from towards the end of February.
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Having submitted the final version of the Plan to Buckinghamshire Council, the Plan is now being consulted upon.
Please visit the Buckinghamshire Council web site to provide your comments on the Plan. The deadline for this consultation is the 7th November 2024.
Buckinghamshire Council will collate the comments received and pass them to the independent examiner who will be scrutinising the Plan to ensure it meets the basic conditions in the Localism Act and other relevant legislation.
If the Plan passes independent examination, a local referendum will take place to see if the Plan has community support.
Council approves draft Neighbourhood Plan
At a Council meeting on 24th June the Council voted to approve the draft plan and design code and to submit these to Buckinghamshire Council. The final draft documents can be seen below, these documents, once submitted, will be subject to further consultation and scrutiny by independent examiners before finally reaching public referendum.
You will note that currently the NDOs are not included with the plan, it is anticipated that these will be brought forward at a later date once the issues surrounding mitigation of The Chilterns Beechwoods Special Area of Conservation have been resolved.
Chesham NP Submission June 2024
Draft Neighbourhood Plan
The Town Council, on 27th September 2023, published documents in relation to its draft (‘Pre-Submission’) Neighbourhood Plan and three Neighbourhood Development Orders for a statutory, six-week consultation period in accordance with Regulations 14 and 21 of the Neighbourhood Planning (General) Regulations 2012 (as amended).
Watch the online webinar hosted by Councillor Baum and external consultant Neil Homer, who explain all about the proposed plan and development orders.
The on-line survey is now closed.
A précis of the plans can be found on the consultation banners.
All detailed documentation relevant to the plans can be found here:
- Final Pre Submission
- Design Code V5.1
- NDO_The Yards
- NDO_Town Centre
- NDO_Newtown
- NDO Civil & Structural Engineering Report
- NDO Transport Movement Report
- SEA Environmental Report
- Site Assessment Report
- Housing Needs Assessment Report
If you have any comments to make on this plan or the documentation, please do so by 5pm on Wednesday 8 November 2023. THIS IS NOW CLOSED.
The Town Council will then collate and analyse all the representations that have been made. It will make any necessary modifications to the Plan and Orders and it is aiming to submit the final documents to Buckinghamshire Council by March 2024, so that it can arrange an independent examination in Spring 2024. If the examination is successful, the Town Council expects that a referendum on the Plan and Orders will be held in Summer 2024.
More Information About Neighbourhood Plans
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 on the designated page:
Great Response to the first Neighbourhood Plan consultation
Between the 15th March and 15th April 2022, we ran a consultation to get residents’ views on the big ideas for the Chesham Neighbourhood Plan (CNP), such as where new homes should be built, how the CNP can contribute to tackling the climate emergency, and what types of homes Chesham needs?
We were delighted that more than 1,500 people took the time to let us know their views.
Cllr Joseph Baum, a member of the Neighbourhood Plan Working Party, said: “Members of the Town Council will now be reviewing all of the feedback received, which will help us to shape the Neighbourhood Plan. These views are crucial to ensuring that we develop a plan to respond to the needs and aspirations of our town.”
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.
