Durham City Neighbourhood Plan

Roger Cornwell, the Chair of the Neighbourhood Planning Forum, spoke at the County Planning Committee on Tuesday 6th February. He was speaking against the University’s proposal to extend sporting facilities at Maiden Castle (DM/17/01929/FPA). His presentation is available: Maiden Castle Committee address

The County Planning Committee approved the University’s application for Maiden Castle. As it is large and in the Green Belt, it has to go off to the government to see whether it should be called in, i.e. go to an Inspector.

The Durham City Neighbourhood Planning Forum will be holding regular meetings as follows:

Weekly business meetings:

• Every Tuesday, 9am, These will finish at 9.30am at the latest to be followed by a Working Group meeting

Monthly wrap up meetings:

• Thursday 22 February, 6.00 – 7.00 pm
• Wednesday 21 March, 6.00 – 7.00 pm
• Thursday 19 April, 6.00 – 7.00 pm

These meetings will be held at the Miners Hall, Redhills, Durham City.

Forum meetings are open to the public. Working Group meetings are for Forum members only.

Minutes of the Forum and Working Group meetings are available.

The responses to the Durham City Neighbourhood draft Plan consultation are now available for public viewing.

In total we received 397 responses from 235 individual people / groups. Once again, our thanks to everyone who responded.

The Durham City Neighbourhood Planning Forum is currently analysing the responses leading to amending the draft plan as applicable.

Durham City Neighbourhood Planning Forum wish to thank everyone who responded to the recent public consultation on their Draft Neighbourhood Plan which was held in November and December last year. The draft Plan is based on the views of the people who live, study, work, or run a business in Durham City and the public consultation provided an opportunity for people to support the Plan policies or to propose amendments to be incorporated in the finished Plan.

Roger Cornwell, Chair of the Durham City Neighbourhood Planning Forum, said ‘We have been heartened by responses not only from the public but from many statutory bodies, most significantly Durham County Council, who, while they have raised some significant issues, have offered their support and are committed to help us to proceed to the final stages of completing the Plan’.

‘We have been delighted by the overall incredibly positive response to the Plan; and we can see that people have fully engaged through the breadth and depth of their responses’, commented Sue Childs. Sue leads the working group in charge of analysing the responses. She explained that the next task is to collate all the responses and place them in the public domain, then to analyse them and amend the draft plan as applicable. The resulting Neighbourhood Plan will be placed in the public domain on the Neighbourhood Plan’s website. The finished Plan will be sent to a planning inspector, and once passed, becomes a statutory document following a public referendum.

Forum press release 9 January 2018

Durham City Neighbourhood Planning Forum will be holding a meeting on Friday 19 January 2018 at 6.00pm in the Committee Room, Miners’ Hall, Redhills. Members of the public are welcome to attend as observers.

Following an excellent response to the Durham City Neighbourhood Draft Plan public consultation events, two additional dates with later opening times have been scheduled to enable workers and young people to attend. These will be held at the Palatine Centre, Durham University on Monday 27th November 12-6pm and Ustinov College, Sheraton Park on Tuesday 28th November 4-8pm, and are open to everyone.

Pippa Bell, Neighbourhood Plan Engagement Officer, explained; “We were delighted by the scale and extent of the response to our first consultation event at Neville’s Cross, so have arranged further meetings to provide additional opportunities for the public to share their views on the Plan. We are grateful to the University for providing the venues.”

The plan is available to view at Claypath Library, County Hall and the Town Hall and also available online at npf.durhamcity.org.uk/the-plan/

Durham City Neighbourhood Planning Forum will be holding a Meeting to Launch the Public Consultation of the Draft Neighbourhood Plan on 3 November 2017, 7.00 to 8.00 pm in the Lantern Room, Durham Town Hall. Non-Forum members are welcome to attend as observers.

Durham University has recently put in two planning proposals:

• a new Teaching and Learning Centre at St Mary’s Field, South Road
• extension and refurbishment of the existing sports centre and the construction of a new tennis centre, Maiden Castle

For the St Mary’s Field proposal our response can be summarised as:

The Durham City Draft Neighbourhood Plan makes no conflicting proposals for St Mary’s Field and therefore the principle of appropriate University development on this site is accepted. However, we are, amongst many other considerations, concerned about the adequacy of the city’s infrastructure to cope with the traffic that will be generated under the Masterplan’s proposals. In particular, there are severe existing problems in relation to pedestrian and cycling capacity in several parts of the network, and the South Road section is one of the most pressing.

Our full response is available for download: NPF Response Mary’s Field Proposal

For the Maiden Castle proposal our response can be summarised as:

The Draft Durham City Neighbourhood Plan confirms the existing statutory Green Belt within the area covered by the Plan, including the Maiden Castle grounds. Accordingly, the Plan is fully aligned with the Green Belt safeguards set out in the National Planning Policy Framework (NPPF) and relevant Saved Policies of the City of Durham Local Plan 2004. We object to the Maiden Castle planning application on the grounds that it represents inappropriate development which, by definition, is harmful to the Green Belt and that there are not the very special circumstances to warrant approving it, contrary to NPPF Paragraphs 87 – 89 and Saved Policy E1 of the City of Durham Local Plan 2004.

Our full response is available for download: NPF Response Maiden Castle Proposal

The NPF oppose the proposed reduction in commercial/retail floorspace at 33 Silver Street which is a key part of the city centre and we oppose the proposed use of the property in Back Silver Street for student accommodation when it should more appropriately be used for commercial/business/retail/craft workshop purposes to further enhance the existing cluster of these uses.

Our full response is available for download: NPF Response Former Post Office Proposal

The Durham City Neighbourhood Planning Forum has just submitted a Scoping Report for the Sustainability Appraisal of the Durham City Neighbourhood Plan to the statutory consultees, i.e. Environment Agency, Historic England and Natural England. This Scoping Report is the first stage in producing an assessment of the environmental, social and economic impacts of the Neighbourhood Plan. A copy of the Scoping Report and the circumstances that led to the Forum preparing this report are explained here.