How Malmesbury became Wiltshire’s first town with a Neighbourhood Plan

 

The long history of the Wiltshire town of Malmesbury has a new date on its timeline: on 25 February 2015 the town’s Neighbourhood Plan was formally adopted – the first such plan in Wiltshire.  And recently they have been giving some advice to Marlborough as councillors here start out on the long process.

Malmesbury’s 21-strong Neighbourhood Steering Group had been working on the plan since April 2012.   Their first job was to delineate the neighbourhood area – and, with agreement, they took in two parishes that border the town’s parish boundary:  the Parish of St Paul Without and the strangely named Brokenborough Parish.

The plan identifies sites to meet the town’s development needs to 202.  It includes guidelines on the layout and look of new buildings.  It includes proposals for housing to meet the needs of young people, families and older people.  It supports locations for new employment and describes ways to protect the High Street. And it outlines how essential local services and the town’s heritage and environment can be protected.

Now it is adopted, Wiltshire Council have to take the Plan into account when it processes planning applications.  But the plan is the lowest level of planning regulation.   It has to be consistent with government policy and Wiltshire’s Core Strategy.

Councillor John Gundry, who has lived in the town for 22 years, been a town councillor for four years, is a former mayor and worked with the Group, told Marlborough News Online:  “There were some things we had to take out of the Neighbourhood Plan because they weren’t consistent with the National Planning Policy Framework.”

Gundry also explained that the government looks very carefully at the make up of Steering Groups: “They like to see a broad based organisation.”  

Malmesbury’s Group included representatives of the local employer Dyson, the Chamber of Commerce, Malmesbury Retailers, the local Civic Trust, governors of three schools, the Malmesbury River Valleys Trust, an extra care housing provider, the local health services, Malmesbury Youth Development, Malmesbury and District Residents’ Association, and the Malmesbury and Villages Community Area Partnership.  Councillors from each of the three parishes and two Wiltshire Councillors – Simon Killane (for Malmesbury Town) and Deputy Leader John Thomson (for the two outer parishes) – joined the Group.

If that looks like a committee with too many members, Councillor Gundry says that most of the detailed work was done by a much smaller executive group.  Among their triumphs was a very good and comprehensive website – complete with video clips.

With the support of Wiltshire Council and their Area Board, they won the government’s Front Runner status – and a government grant of £21,000.  Councillor Killane had started the process to get that grant in November 2011.  

That large grant meant that with just £2,000 from the town council – “And we did not want any more” – with another, smaller government grant they easily raised their budget figure of £28,000 – “And we spent it!”  

Council Gundry says “Printing took a lot of our budget, but you need that for your consultation work. Satisfactory consultation is another key part of the process.”
Along the way there were public meetings, workshops, a mound of feedback forms – and even a visit from the Planning Minister

Another cost is the essential referendum – held last November: “If you get a good result it removes any ambiguity about the plan. We got 90 per cent approval on a 32 per cent turnout – which is very respectable – about in the middle of the referendums held so far in England.”

John Gundry is bullish about the way the Plan will work as regards Wiltshire Council’s need for ‘strategic housing’ sites: “It is easy for the idea to grow that here are people shoving houses down our throats.  Now we are looking for the sites in bigger blocks – and we won’t get two houses in Mrs Whatnot’s garden.”

Councillor Simon Killane, who is standing as an independent candidate for the North Wiltshire constituency in Thursday’s General Election, told Marlborough News Online:  “We saw that as we are a hill top town, we could protect it from big development.  With our heritage at stake, there was a real frustration in the form of over-development and big retailers on the edge of the town threatening the high street.”

While the Neighbourhood Plan was being worked on, a huge and very political row erupted over the siting of a supermarket for the town.  It ended up in the courts.  In the early stages of the process towards the neighbourhood Plan, it did not carry enough weight.  But later on, with the nascent Neighbourhood Plan as a shield, Killane says the town won.

Instead of a huge Sainsbury’s store on a brown field site at the edge of town, they got a Waitrose on a green field site within the conservation area and four minutes from the High Street: “We have a store to match the shape of the landscape.” And Waitrose agreed to a ‘grocery only’ store – no post office, no restaurant, no chemist.  

Killane reckons Waitrose’s effect on the High Street is “neutral”, whereas the Sainsbury store would have taken 30 per cent of retail out of the town and decimated the independent shops: “Our High Street is absolutely booming.”

Instead of an offer from Sainsbury’s of a million pounds for the town, Waitrose gave £180,000 to establish a Town Team.  The row did get pretty poisonous and many people opposed Killane’s support for the Waitrose store: “People who sent me hate mail – now I see them in Waitrose.”

Already Malmesbury’s plan has had a recorded impact on developers’ plans.  Last month a Planning Inspector threw out plans to tear down a barn and build nine four and two bedroom houses: “The Malmesbury Neighbourhood Plan places an emphasis on ensuring that new housing development comes forward in a way that preserves the rural character of the village.”

The Inspector also criticised the ‘somewhat cramped layout’ of the houses, which he felt would be bad for the living conditions of residents.

Killane believes the Neighbourhood Plan has “democratised planning”.  During the process he thinks about 70 per cent of people in Malmesbury and the two parishes were overall very positive and supported it, 20 per cent were not too bothered – and “10 per cent hated the whole thing to the point of challenging it.”

Killane would like to go further with planning reforms: “The right of developers to tie down land with options has to be stopped.  The relationship between developers and politicians is far too cosy.”

But he believes the Neighbourhood Plan offers real protection. And explaining the usefulness of the Plan, John Gundry harks back to that old television commercial where an insurance policy turned into a castle – urging people ‘To get the strength of the insurance industry round you’:  “Before we had the Neighbourhood Plan, people went green about the gills when developers came along – because they didn’t have anything to protect them.”