Background.
Warmington Parish council has decided to carry out a review of the Warmington Neighbourhood Plan (WNP) to ensure that it remains relevant and effective as part of statutory Planning Policy for the next 6 years until 2031. This is in recognition of the fact that there have been significant changes to the planning environment since the WNP was “made” (adopted) in 2019.
These changes include East Northants Council (ENC) being dissolved and replaced by North Northants Council (NNC). NNC has yet to adopt a whole area wide Local Plan Part 2 which is the primary document that governs planning for Warmington, but instead, the old Rural North Oundle and Thrapston Plan (RNOTP) was replaced in 2023 as the East Northants Local Plan Part 2. This is now the primary Plan that is used by the Planning Authority (NNC) as the basis for all planning decisions in Warmington and it states:
….“made” Neighbourhood Plan policies have parity with Local Plan policy making
in terms of weightings in decision making
Above the Local Plan Part 2 is the Local Plan Part 1 – Northamptonshire Joint Core Strategy (JCS) – this provides a more strategic plan for the whole of Northants. Above this is the National Planning Policy Framework (NPPF) which is a government level document that governs all planning within UK. The NPPF underwent significant revision in late 2024 as the new government changed some emphasis within Planning and set new housing targets.
NNC has drafted a new Housing Strategy that is being consulted on, this indicates the level of housing that NNC would aim to get built from 2025-2030. It mainly concerns urban areas but it also shows that there is a vast deficit in affordable housing throughout the area including in rural areas such as Warmington.
It is required that the WNP does not conflict with any Policies in these Plans and so it is appropriate to carry out a review to check this, make factual amendments (such as replacing ENC with NNC), but also to consider what effect all the changes might have on the relevance of the WNP in terms of development (building) within Warmington over the next 6 years.
Process
Only NNC can decide to implement any proposed revisions to the WNP and it has to assess the types of revisions and then decide whether to simply adopt the changes (for simple factual revisions such as changing ENC to NNC) or to require the revisions to be submitted for wider consultation (Regulation 14) and then Examination by an independent Planning Inspector. Significant Policy revisions would then require a local Referendum to be held to approve the revised plan.
This process is outlined by NNC and this further refers to a Locality document that describes how to go about this at a local level. This document should be used as an initial guide to the WNP review.
The starting point for Warmington is to get together a core group of interested people who can help with the process. If you think you can help then please email:
warmington2031@gmail.com
We will then start looking at the scope of the review – this scope will be updated as ideas come forward. A basic scope has already been formed – not all ideas can be taken forward but we need to have a record of all suggestions from all parts of the community.
The community as a whole needs to be engaged so that people have a chance to suggest topics for review and express opinions on the content and policies of the WNP such as those that protect important resources such as green space as well as perhaps suggesting the best areas for any development if it becomes clear that this is needed to meet the housing needs of the local and wider community either by local evidence or because NNC has to impose local targets.
An open village meeting has been organised by the PC for 19th May to encourage more community involvement..