Steering Group
The first step is to establish a Steering Group (SG) to develop the NP. This should be set up by the Town or Parish Council (except where there is no Parish Council when a Neighbourhood Forum (NF) can be set up to develop the NP). The Town or Parish Council or NF will be the qualifying body, ie the body that will own the NDP and be responsible for submitting the NP to the Local Planning authority (LPA).
Terms of Reference
The terms of reference for the SG must be set by the qualifying body. Where there is a Town or Parish Council, the SG will normally include a number of Councillors but there should be an open invitation for any residents to join the SG. It is not unusual for some members of the SG to resign after the first few meetings. The SG does not need to be large, in fact a large group may be difficult to manage, but it helps if there a reasonable number of members to share some of the work, particularly things like leaflet distribution. Note that the process of creating a NP often results in the collection of personal data and, therefore, the requirements of GDPR must be met.
Funding and support
Unfortunately, the Government have currently withdrawn the funding that was previously available through Locality to assist with the preparation of NPs. Commonly this was used to employ consultants to help to write the NP. It isn’t essential to use consultants to do all the work, there is guidance available from Locality, for those in the South and Vale Districts there is help from their NP team and ONPA can provide help and advice. However, it may be beneficial to consider employing consultants to help with specific aspects of the NP. Contentious issues can arise when selecting sites and developers and landowners may challenge the NP, so the use of consultants in areas such as this can avoid those challenges. It is always worth looking at other NPs and copying relevant policies, etc – plagiarism is perfectly acceptable and there is no need to reinvent the wheel. Other NP groups will have faced the same issues so learn from their experience.
Designated area
The next step is to get the area covered by the NP designated. This is a formal step that has to be approved by the LPA. The designated area is usually the Town or Parish boundary. It is possible to prepare a NP covering multiple parishes in which case the designated area will be the combines Parish boundaries.
Getting started
The biggest barrier to creating a successful NP is a lack of clarity over what the NP is meant to achieve, so the next step is to identify the issues and options. Getting started with the NP is probably the most difficult and most important stage in the preparation of a NP. It is vital to identify the objectives for the NP – what are the issues that are affecting the Town or Parish that can be addressed by the NP, bearing in mind that the NDP is about land use and its policies will be used when determining planning applications.
The SG may have ideas about what the issues are but it is important that the resident’s views are taken into account. At the end of the process the NP will be the subject of a referendum of the residents and if they don’t feel that the NP has addressed their concerns the NP may fail the referendum. Public exhibitions about the NP are useful, but the best way to get started is with a questionnaire delivered to every household either on paper or via an online system. It is rare to get a very high response because most people won’t be interested. One way to encourage a higher level of response is to deliver the questionnaire by hand and go back a few days later to collect the questionnaire responses. It is important to explain what a NP is and what limitations it has. People will often raise issues that may not able to be addressed in a NDP, such as waiting times for doctor’s appointments, the lack of a NHS dentist, traffic speeding, etc. But it is useful to collect all of this information.
The SGs job now is to distil these issues into a clear set of objectives for the NDP and then to draft policies to meet those objectives, bearing in mind the basic conditions that a NP must meet. A NP must be in general compliance with:
Locality has some general guidance on the production of NPs, available here - https://locality.org.uk/neighbourhood-planning. South and Vale District Councils are about to publish some guidance on specific aspects of Neighbourhood Planning including a template NP. There are many NPs out there that have addressed similar issues to the ones that you will be facing. South and Vale also publish a list of NP policies from NDPs in their area, available here - https://www.southandvale.gov.uk/app/uploads/sites/2/2025/06/Policy-Table-Updated-May-2025.pdf.
ONPA also has information and resources to help its members to prepare a NP and runs workshops on various aspects of producing NPs, such as policy writing, site selection, etc.
What can be covered by a NP
Policies can be produced covering:
The first step is to establish a Steering Group (SG) to develop the NP. This should be set up by the Town or Parish Council (except where there is no Parish Council when a Neighbourhood Forum (NF) can be set up to develop the NP). The Town or Parish Council or NF will be the qualifying body, ie the body that will own the NDP and be responsible for submitting the NP to the Local Planning authority (LPA).
Terms of Reference
The terms of reference for the SG must be set by the qualifying body. Where there is a Town or Parish Council, the SG will normally include a number of Councillors but there should be an open invitation for any residents to join the SG. It is not unusual for some members of the SG to resign after the first few meetings. The SG does not need to be large, in fact a large group may be difficult to manage, but it helps if there a reasonable number of members to share some of the work, particularly things like leaflet distribution. Note that the process of creating a NP often results in the collection of personal data and, therefore, the requirements of GDPR must be met.
Funding and support
Unfortunately, the Government have currently withdrawn the funding that was previously available through Locality to assist with the preparation of NPs. Commonly this was used to employ consultants to help to write the NP. It isn’t essential to use consultants to do all the work, there is guidance available from Locality, for those in the South and Vale Districts there is help from their NP team and ONPA can provide help and advice. However, it may be beneficial to consider employing consultants to help with specific aspects of the NP. Contentious issues can arise when selecting sites and developers and landowners may challenge the NP, so the use of consultants in areas such as this can avoid those challenges. It is always worth looking at other NPs and copying relevant policies, etc – plagiarism is perfectly acceptable and there is no need to reinvent the wheel. Other NP groups will have faced the same issues so learn from their experience.
Designated area
The next step is to get the area covered by the NP designated. This is a formal step that has to be approved by the LPA. The designated area is usually the Town or Parish boundary. It is possible to prepare a NP covering multiple parishes in which case the designated area will be the combines Parish boundaries.
Getting started
The biggest barrier to creating a successful NP is a lack of clarity over what the NP is meant to achieve, so the next step is to identify the issues and options. Getting started with the NP is probably the most difficult and most important stage in the preparation of a NP. It is vital to identify the objectives for the NP – what are the issues that are affecting the Town or Parish that can be addressed by the NP, bearing in mind that the NDP is about land use and its policies will be used when determining planning applications.
The SG may have ideas about what the issues are but it is important that the resident’s views are taken into account. At the end of the process the NP will be the subject of a referendum of the residents and if they don’t feel that the NP has addressed their concerns the NP may fail the referendum. Public exhibitions about the NP are useful, but the best way to get started is with a questionnaire delivered to every household either on paper or via an online system. It is rare to get a very high response because most people won’t be interested. One way to encourage a higher level of response is to deliver the questionnaire by hand and go back a few days later to collect the questionnaire responses. It is important to explain what a NP is and what limitations it has. People will often raise issues that may not able to be addressed in a NDP, such as waiting times for doctor’s appointments, the lack of a NHS dentist, traffic speeding, etc. But it is useful to collect all of this information.
The SGs job now is to distil these issues into a clear set of objectives for the NDP and then to draft policies to meet those objectives, bearing in mind the basic conditions that a NP must meet. A NP must be in general compliance with:
- The strategic policies of the LPA’s Local Plan (often most of the Local Plan policies are defined as strategic).
- The National Planning Policy Framework (NPPF)
- Legislation (formerly EU regulations that were mostly adopted into UK law after Brexit)
Locality has some general guidance on the production of NPs, available here - https://locality.org.uk/neighbourhood-planning. South and Vale District Councils are about to publish some guidance on specific aspects of Neighbourhood Planning including a template NP. There are many NPs out there that have addressed similar issues to the ones that you will be facing. South and Vale also publish a list of NP policies from NDPs in their area, available here - https://www.southandvale.gov.uk/app/uploads/sites/2/2025/06/Policy-Table-Updated-May-2025.pdf.
ONPA also has information and resources to help its members to prepare a NP and runs workshops on various aspects of producing NPs, such as policy writing, site selection, etc.
What can be covered by a NP
Policies can be produced covering:
- Housing, emplpyment or retail site allocations
- Housing mix and type (size, detached, semi-detached, etc)
- Settlement boundary to limit extension of the bullt area
- Preservation of green spaces
- Protection of important views
- Environmental issues - biodiversity, etc
- Renewable energy provision
- Production of healthy living places
- Housing design
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