Newsletter No 5

CHESIL BANK PARISH NEIGHBOURHOOD PLAN PROJECT

Newsletter No 5

You will all be aware that we suspended work on the Neighbourhood Plan back in March at the onset of lockdown. Inevitably, not only have we lost ground in the overall plan but also all our lives have changed as a result of Covid-19, and they may never be quite the same again. Recent discussions in Chesil Bank Parish Council Meetings and in the Neighbourhood Plan Steering Group have concluded that some of your responses to the various surveys we have carried out may now be different. This is especially true of the Business Survey, where many of the businesses in the area have been adversely affected by the consequences of Covid-19. We are also aware that many employees have been furloughed during recent months and again your responses to the employment survey may now be different. It is also true that those of you who had aspirations to move house and responded as such in the housing survey may now view their prospects differently.

The Neighbourhood Plan Steering Group has now re-opened the programme of work and meetings are being carried out on Zoom. It is our intention to re-release the Business Survey and also to release a comprehensive survey to all households, encompassing not only the questions which were part of the first 2 surveys, but also some additional questions on Community facilities, the environment etc.

We hope that you understand our reasons for repeating the exercise and that you will want to take the opportunity to submit your views once again. Many of you have probably become more acquainted with online transactions during this period of lockdown and we would like to encourage you to respond to our surveys online if at all possible. This not only makes it much easier for us to compile the results but also it eliminates the need to handle paper responses, which in the present situation is an important safety measure.

We will be distributing the surveys as usual by hand and we will be following the appropriate guidelines and processes for ensuring a safe packaging and distribution of the surveys. The collection points for the survey returns will be communicated once the distribution is underway.

Finally, a word about the overall plan. The suspension of work over the last 3 months has inevitably had an adverse impact on the timescales for completion of the plan. However, it has given us the opportunity to review the back end of the plan in more detail, and it seems that we need to allow more time for consultation with the various stakeholders before we are ready to present the plan to the community. As a result, it is likely to be Spring 2022 before we are ready to prepare for the Referendum.

In order to prepare for the Public Consultation which must take place as part of the overall plan, we require additional voluntary expertise in the area of Marketing/ PR. If you have expertise in this area and are able to help, then we would be delighted to hear from you. Please contact your Village Representative or any member of the Steering Group to notify us of your interest. The contact details are on our Web site, www.Vision4Chesil.org . 

Thank you for your understanding and support. If you wish to make any comments about this newsletter or anything else related to the Neighbourhood Plan work, then please go to our Facebook page. https://www.facebook.com/Vision4Chesil/

Stay safe and well

The Neighbourhood Planning Steering Group