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Public voice to be at the heart of new plan

Voices from the Castle Point community will be key to shaping a vision for how the borough will develop over the coming decades.

At the first meeting of the newly formed Castle Point Plan Board, councillors pledged that engaging with and listening to residents would be at the heart of developing the council’s new cornerstone planning document.

The Board will ensure broad and in-depth engagement with all sections of the Castle Point community at every stage of the plan’s development.

Chair of the Board, Cllr Warren Gibson said: “We are going to make it as simple and easy as possible for people to put forward their views.

“We are going to go out and meet people in their communities on their own terms rather than expect them to come to us.

“Often engagement in plan-making is reliant on an understanding of planning and requires the reading of large volumes of evidence-based documents. We know from previous work that this puts people off and so we will simplify things and make this about what people want the future of their community to be rather than the technicalities of planning policy.”

Over the next two years, The Board, which is made up of councillors from all political parties at Castle Point Borough Council, will oversee the development of the Castle Point Plan and ensure that it is not only sound and legal but meets the needs of the community.

Once complete, the plan will act as a framework to meet the boroughs needs up to 2050. It will be kept under regular review to ensure it continues to meet the borough’s needs.

If you would like to give you views and be kept up to date as the plan develops please email planningpolicy@castlepoint.gov.uk

NOTES TO EDITORS

  • The Castle Point Plan Board is a cross party Board made up of three members from each of the political parties which make up Castle Point Borough Council.
  • It meets monthly and is chaired by Cllr Warren Gibson, the Cabinet Member for Strategic Planning.
  • The Board was established to oversee the development of Castle Point Borough Council’s new plan following the approval by the Council on 30 November 2022 to prepare the Castle Point Plan.
  • The decision in November followed the withdrawal of the previous Local Plan and agreement to support a motion at a Special Meeting of Council on 15 June 2022:

‘The Local Plan examination has now been completed and the Local Plan has not been adopted. We call on the Council to withdraw the local plan immediately and start work on a new Local Plan that reflects the central government stated aim to protect and preserve the precious green belt in our local area. A priority of this new Local Plan would be to produce a target housing number that genuinely reflects local need. As this housing target will be lower than previous proposals this must be supported by robust evidence. All housing developments should prioritize brownfield development.’