NEIGHBOURHOOD PLAN UPDATES

Respecting our Heritage, Defining our Future (2025-2041)

In this first bulletin, we summarise progress in the development of the Felsted Neighbourhood Plan (FNP), which was originally made in 2020, and which is now being reassessed by the Felsted Neighbourhood Plan Review group (RG) with the intention of further extending the protection from unwanted development the plan provides.

Since the introduction of the FNP, many developers have been deterred from attempting to introduce development proposals because the weight of the FNP influences Planning Authorities (e.g. the recent proposal at Hartford End for 50 dwellings was not in the FNP and was refused by the Planning Inspectorate whose refusal included reference to conflict with four policies in the FNP).

From the original made FNP, the two developments agreed are due to be completed by end 2025:

• Bury Farm development, (on West side of Felsted), is under construction including the New Health Centre / Surgery,
• Sunnybrook Farm development, (on East side of Felsted), is under construction including 90 space carpark for Meet & Greet at Felsted Primary School.

Before we get to why and how we are now reviewing the FNP, it’s really very important that you know the boundaries of our parish, the area to which the plan applies. Much of the local development people have been complaining about is NOT actually in Felsted, it’s in adjoining parishes including Flitch Green and Little Dunmow! (See the attached map.)

Although we cannot ‘plan’ for development outside our parish plan area, we can as a parish council object to ANY planning application and we always will object where we think that development on our doorstep is damaging to Felsted parish. We don’t always win but we do have a voice that has influence.

Future development in Felsted:

• Our local planning authority is Uttlesford District Council (UDC). UDC has advanced its Local Plan which suggests the council will NOT increase the number of houses allocated to each parish for development by the new government’s housing targets. But the original allocation has been revised from 95 to 104 to be built over the Plan Period up to 2041. (This will be reduced a little by “Windfall Sites” approved after April 2024 (e.g. where a single private dwelling is demolished and replaced by 2 or more smaller homes).
• As a parish, we can either let developers decide where they want to build those 90+ homes in Felsted or we can identify sites where we prefer development to take place. We are going to choose.
• On the 15/16 March 2024 The RG held two Drop-in Meetings with information on display about the Review and maps indicating 12 sites which have been accepted by UDC in the call for sites process and further assessed by the RG for possible development. 150 residents indicated their preferences and objections for the sites for new homes and a site for a possible new and enlarged village shop and Post Office.
• The Review Group is now working with a small number of landowners and developers to try to identify sites where we can spread the required development across the whole 17 years of the Plan Period (to 2041) and trying to defer any further immediate development for up to 5 years.
• The Review Group is also studying the results of the Housing Needs Survey which indicates a need for some smaller homes to facilitate down-sizing and to consider how we might develop some Social Housing with the support of a Housing Association.
• A Traffic Survey has been commissioned by FPC along Station Road. It has been completed and we are awaiting the report from Essex CC.
• The Synod and membership of the United Reform Church in Stebbing Road have generously agreed to pass ownership and management of the burial ground in Chelmsford Road to FPC. This means the parish no longer has to look for a new burial ground site. Felsted Parishioners of any denomination will have access for future burials.

For updated information, the minutes of each meeting and other relevant information including the results from the 2024 Housing Need Survey, are published on here on the Felsted Parish Council website.

March 2024 – Drop-In Sessions

The Neighbourhood Plan Review Group held 2 drop-in sessions on the 15th & 16th March 2024.

Over the two days of the drop-in sessions at the Memorial Hall, the Review Group met 137 parishioners who viewed and commented on the 18 information boards and the maps of the sites the Group was proposing as possible sites for the 95 additional new homes the parish is obliged, by Uttlesford District Council  (UDC) to accept between now and 2041.

The unanimously expressed opinion was that Felsted ‘had enough’ and any further development was undesirable anywhere in the parish. However, it was also accepted that if Felsted had to have more homes, planning where they should be, what they should look like and defining the need they should meet was infinitely preferable to allowing developers free reign.

The drop-in invited parishioners to consider 12 sites, all of which have been put forward by landowners to UDC as being available for development, and to put coloured dots signifying either their support or objection to each site. Members of the Review Group had well-informed and engaged conversation with many of the attendees, while others were content just to read the information boards and make their decisions.

The Review Group also asked where, if necessary, the shop could be relocated and are grateful for the consideration this issue was given.

The next step for the Review Group is to analyse the choices indicated and to combine the results with the outcome of the independent Housing Needs Survey.

Three points have emerged as recurrent concerns:

1. It is important to know the Felsted parish boundaries. For example, the large developments west of Priory Bridge on Station Road are in Flitch Green and Little Dunmow parishes, outside of Felsted Parish and are therefore beyond any control or influence Felsted might have through its current neighbourhood plan.
2. There is a consensus that the kinds of home that are being built are often not what local people want. There are too many large ‘executive’ homes and too few, smaller but nevertheless high quality, spacious homes for downsizers or homes for younger entrants to the housing market. The Review Group will very carefully consider these comments alongside the outcome of the Housing Needs Survey, which is expected towards the end of April.
3. There was a broad consensus that development should be phased over the 17 years between now and 2041 and not front-loaded. These comments are in alignment with the Review Groups current thinking, insomuch the group thinks that the housing need will change over the plan period and should be met incrementally after further Housing Needs Survey’s at five year intervals. The group will now investigate how phasing can be structured.

The Review Group thanks everyone who came along, for their kind words and for sharing their passion for keeping Felsted a wonderful place to live.