Minutes 16th November 2017

MINUTES OF A MEETING OF THE CHARMOUTH NEIGHBOURHOOD PLAN STEERING GROUP HELD AT THE LIBRARY, CHARMOUTH, ON 16TH NOVEMBER  2017 AT 7.00PM 

Present:  Carole Girling (Chair), Sarah Edwards (Secretary), Andy Bateman, Simon Leech, Teresa Noel, Tim Sheward,  Eden Thomson.

Apologies:  David Clifford, Ros Cole, Jan Gale, Beth Gillan, Steve Gillan, Adrian Ragbourne, Tanya Trenholm.

Minutes of the last meeting

The Chairman reminded members of the requirement under the Terms of Reference to declare any interest in any item on the agenda or in any topic that arises during the meeting.

Matters Arising

CG has sent an amended list of newbuilds/planning applications to the consultant, Ivan Tennant/Jonathan Hill.

Updates

Qualitative analysis – AB, ET, RC and JS have met and established standards for fonts, headings etc.  They expect to meet again, hopefully before Christmas, to resolve some further queries.  The executive summary has been done.  SE and SL offered to proof read the final draft.

Housing design guidance for this area needs to be researched – SL will do this.

Budget – AB was unable to make a payment to JS as planned, as it has to go through the Parish Concil’s finance sub-committee.  The first payment was missed by the parish council, so JS is now owed two payments.

Housing needs analysis (by AECOM) – TS said that the conclusions seem about right, but that this type of analysis is only a starting point.  There is nothing in there about employment opportunities in Charmouth, or about numbers of second homes/ rented properties and how many properties are occupied by local people.  The effect of the large developments in Bridport and east Devon is also not covered.  AB felt the core number of 927 houses may be wrong (based on the census figures), plus the fact that the Group delivered a total of 855 copies of the survey to homes and businesses makes it likely that 927 is too high. It may be that the housing needs of west Dorset and of Charmouth in particular, are distorted by the needs of east Dorset, especially Bournemouth and Poole.  A further query was the accuracy of the analysis with regard to the rise in house prices in Charmouth in the past nine years.

It was agreed that AB would feedback comments to the consultant for amendments and additions, before we take up the opportunity to discuss it with West Dorset officials.

It was agreed that we need a further meeting to discuss all the issues related to housing, and that we need to arrange a meeting with WDDC when we have  had responses to the report and have heard from Terry Sweeney.

Interviews with service providers – CG, SE and TT have drawn up a list and divided it between them.  It was agreed that a representative number of sole traders/people working from home should be asked to participate.

Contents list for Neighbourhood Plan

AB said that there is no standard format for Plans, and suggested that we should decide as we go which topics should be covered by a policy statement. TS said that it is not too soon to start drafting policies.

Open Forum

The next Open Forum was pencilled in for late January or February.  It was felt that this would be good for a specific presentation but if it is too generalised it would confuse rather than inform.  It was agreed that the format will be discussed at the next meeting.

Next meeting

The next meeting will be on 13th December and the one after that on 18th January, which Terry Sweeney should be asked to attend.  Venues to be arranged.

(The meeting on 13th December will be in St Andrews Hall at 7pm.)

There being no further business the meeting ended at 8.45pm.   

AB Andrew Bateman; DC David Clifford; RC Ros Cole; PD Phil Davidson; SE Sarah Edwards; CF Chris Fraser; BG Beth Gillan; SG Steve Gillan; CG Carole Girling; SL Simon Leech; TN Teresa Noel; PN Peter Noel; PO Paul Oatway; AR Adrian Ragbourne; JS Jo Seaman, TS Tim Sheward, ET Eden Thomson;  TT Tanya Trenholm;