Introduction

In this chapter, we convey the everyday experiences of neighbourhood planning by bringing together the voices of a range of different actors involved in a variety of plans. We have presented these accounts as narratives without comment or interpretation as we believe they give a unique and powerful insight not only into the practical and emotional aspects of ‘doing’ neighbourhood planning, but also into the wider issues that this book is engaged with. Readers will be able to make connections between these accounts and the themes raised so far. The voices also give different perspectives reflecting the different interests engaged in neighbourhood development plans (NDPs): neighbourhood forum and parish/town council members; local authorities; developers; and consultants. They are, of course, not representative, but that was never the intention of this chapter. The accounts are drawn from a range of sources, including interviews and presentations to workshops. In some cases, the verbatim accounts have been slightly edited to clarify the meaning; however, we have remained as true to the original meaning as possible.

The neighbourhood

Voice 1

I’m the Chairman of the Neighbourhood Plan Steering Group in Linton, a small village of 270 houses north-east of Leeds. Like most communities, our neighbourhood plan was driven by fear of unwanted development. In 2012, we realised that there were quite a number of land sites that had been put forward for housing in our village. Nearly every resident within the village was going to be affected by one or more of these sites, and if all the sites were developed, it would double the size of the village, so there was great concern about this. We set out on the journey of producing our neighbourhood plan in May 2012 and, very naively, we thought it was going to be finished by December the same year. In 2015, we’re nearly there. First, we needed to gather the information to prepare our plan. We organised a village survey and consultation meetings. We made a big mistake in the early part of the plan preparation by making it complicated. We set up the drafting committee, which carried out the research and organised all the consultation. However, as the village wanted to be involved in the whole process, we set up a steering group, of which every resident and key stakeholder could be a member.