MINUTES OF A MEETING OF THE CRANBROOK & SISSINGHURST NEIGHBOURHOOD DEVELOPMENT PLAN STEERING GROUP HELD ON 30TH NOVEMBER 2020
PRESENT: Cllr. Warne (in the Chair), Cllrs. Fletcher, Hatcher and Pethurst, Annie Hopper, Marion Cranmer, Liz Daley, June Bell, Jeremy Boxall and Matt Warne
APOLOGIES: Cllr. Smith
Cllr. Warne read out the following statement:
Members are required to declare any interests, dispensations, predetermination on items on this agenda in accordance with the Council’s Code of Conduct. Members are reminded that changes to the Register of Interests should be notified to the Clerk.
Cllr. Warne declared an interest under the site assessments regarding site 122 which had been put forward by a relative. Cllrs. Warne, June Bell, Matt Warne and Annie Hopper declared a personal interest as members of the CVLT (Crane Valley Land Trust). Annie Hopper, June Bell and Liz Daley declared an interest as members of Hartley Save Our Fields Action Group. Members of the various Advisory Groups declared an interest as necessary.
- Liaison with Tunbridge Wells Borough Council:
Cllr. Warne reported that Deborah Dixon, TWBC Planning Officer has informed her that there were accessibility issues with the NDP Draft Consultation Document. Cllr. Hatcher responded that making everything accessible would take a lot of work and asked if this could be undertaken as a result of consultation and not during this consultation period. Cllr. Warne had spoken to Benenden PC who had also been informed that their document did not meet accessibility requirements. Tunbridge Wells Borough Council had informed them that they could undertake this work at a cost of £2,500. Locality had told Benenden Parish Council that helping to make the document accessible is the responsibility of TWBC. Cllr. Warne agreed to contact TWBC and Locality for clarification on this point.
- Draft Reg. 14 Public Consultation:
Cllr. Warne began by thanking Cllr. Pethurst and Marion Cranmer for all their hard work in promoting the draft consultation – posters and banners had been displayed at numerous locations and many social media posts had been shared with local chat groups.
Cllr. Hatcher informed the meeting that email responses were being received as well as the on line survey which might extend the timeline. All agreed that it was important that parishioners should continue to be encouraged to respond in any format so that all comments could be taken on board.
Cllr. Warne stated that the next zoom consultation event would take place on 2nd December 2020 and to date 18 people had signed up to join.
Following discussion, it was agreed that the draft consultation responses would be put into the same categories as the individual policy chapter task groups as follows:
Vision and Objectives All
Access and Movement Jeremy Boxall, Liz Daley
Business and Employment Cllr’s. Hatcher, Pethurst, & Fletcher
Culture and Community Marion Cranmer, Cllr. Pethurst
Design and Heritage Annie Hopper, June Bell, Marion Cranmer
Infrastructure Jeremy Boxall, Liz Daley, Matt Warne
Housing Jeremy Boxall, Liz Daley
Landscape and the Natural Environment Cllr. Warne
Members were encouraged to ask for further assistance if there were too many responses for them to manage. Cllr. Hatcher would contact Richard Eastham to see how the Survey Monkey results are going to be handed over to us. He was expecting them to be exported to a spreadsheet which would be easy to analyse but needed to check whether this is correct.
Marion Cranmer asked for clarification on how the papers needed to be filed when it came to submitting the evidence of consultation to the Inspectorate. It was agreed that she could contact Richard Eastham direct for guidance.
- Project Timetable:
It was agreed that Cllr. Warne and Cllr. Pethurst would set the timetable, which could then be forwarded to Deborah Dixon, TWBC Planning Officer. This was dependent on when the Survey Monkey results were forwarded to us by Richard Eastham.
- Stakeholder Engagement:
Cllr. Pethurst, Annie Hopper and June Bell had a very informative zoom meeting with Andrew Wilford of Esquire Developments regarding the Wilsley Farm Site, Whitewell Lane. Notes from this meeting would be circulated to the NDP Committee. The developers had agreed to forward a hard copy of the proposed plans to the Parish Council and an electronic version to be forwarded to Cllr. Pethurst. Cllr. Warne thanked them for taking on this task which was endorsed by members present.
Date of Next Meeting: Monday 11th January at 7pm
