Staploe Parish Council Neigbourhood Plan

What is a Neighbourhood Plan?

In response to Bedford Council’s request for more and new housing development across the Borough, the Parish Council has formed a Neighbourhood Plan Steering Group to prepare a Neighbourhood Plan for the Parish. This is our best opportunity to input into and to influence future development decisions. Our aim is to retain and protect the rural identity of our Parish. Our Neighbourhood Plan will give us a say on what we want the Parish to be like in the future, including whether or not we’d like new housing development. With only 146 houses we want to make sure that any future plans protect our thriving rural community, our visual landscapes and respect the very special characteristics of our three peaceful hamlets.

 

Why is it important?

Bedford Borough Council’s existing Local Plan runs to 2030 and outlines development across the Borough and surrounding Parishes. There were no proposals to build any houses in our Parish in Local Plan 2030. However, the Borough Council are now reviewing the Local Plan and have to build 26,000 new houses in the Borough between 2020 and 2040. They called for landowners to identify suitable sites for development and several large sites were submitted from our Parish (see below)  with the potential to take up to 14,000 houses if all were to go ahead. (Please see details and a map of all these sites below).  The Parish Council does not support the Bedford Borough Council options for extensive development in the Parish.

It is important that we have a Neighbourhood Plan as it will allow us to shape and protect our Parish for the future. In addition to development, the Plan will also cover other important issues such as: roads, transport, natural environment, utilities and the protection of green spaces. With a plan in place, we have a stronger voice as Bedford Borough Council must take it into account when they make planning decisions.

What area are we talking about?

Our Neighbourhood Plan is for Staploe Parish. Staploe Parish is made up of three hamlets: Staploe, Duloe and Honeydon. It also includes the settlements of Upper Staploe, Begwary, Bassmead and Bushmead.

Parishes with a Neighbourhood Plan receive 25% of the Community Infrastructure Levy money.  Those without a Neighbourhood Plan receive only 15%

Current Situation

There have been recent changes to planning laws introduced by the Labour Government under a revised National Planning Policy Framework (NPPF) (12 December 2024). This includes a new housing target for Bedford Borough and in summary the changes indicate that:

  • Bedford Borough’s annual target for housebuilding has reduced to 1,202 and its base requirement over the next five years (with a 5% “buffer”) is therefore 6,010 homes. BUT very importantly for our area over-delivery in previous years can no longer count.
  • The Borough’s currently identified deliverable supply over the next five years is 4,371 which means there is a shortfall of 1,940 homes against the requirement.
  • So, from 15th January 2025, the Council will be able to demonstrate a housing land supply of only 46 years.
  • When a Local Authority is unable to demonstrate a housing supply of 5 years planning rules mean that there is a presumption in favour of sustainable development in assessing planning applications. This is sometimes known as “tilted balance” where the balance is tilted in favour of sustainable development.  This has significant implications for our parish.  Bedford Borough Council’s Local Plan would normally mean that development in areas classified as “Open Countryside” would not be considered suitable for new housing development and our whole parish is classed as open countryside.  However, under a tilted balance situation the Local Plan holds less importance and national policies take precedence.  Much of our parish would still be considered an unsustainable location due to the lack of facilities, services and public transport but the risk of unplanned development is greater.
  • We have been told that having a “made” Neighbourhood Plan increases the level of protection from unplanned development.  Therefore we are prioritising our plan to get it finished as soon as possible.

Bedford Borough Council’s Draft Local Plan 2040 did not propose any development in our parish.  However, the plan was rejected by the Planning Inspector.

Bedford Borough’s Local Plan 2040 was not approved by the inspector in early December 2023.  The key issues were:

  1. Some of the transport infrastructure projects (eg. A421 widening project) being critical to the proposals and yet they do not have committed funding.  Unlike the A428 Black Cat to Caxton Gibbet which does have committed funding.
  2. Not being able to build homes at Little Barford and Kempston Hardwick at the rates assumed (600 dwellings per year on each site for 3 years)

The inspector suggested an element of targeted growth around key service centres and rural service centres.  At the moment we are not a rural service centre.  Great Barford and Sharnbrook would be examples of rural service centres.

The Borough Council have requested that the examination process be paused until January 2025 because there is a proposal for Universal Studios to develop a theme park and associated housing in Bedford at Kempston Hardwick.   The idea is not currently a firm proposal.  To assist Universal in making a decision whether to pursue the project National Highways have prepared a model of the A421 route from the M1 to the A1.  The Borough Council are asking National Highways whether this model could be used for the assessment of local plan allocations (eg for sites for new homes).  This would mean that they could test scenarios without the need to spend nine months updating the Bedford Borough Traffic Model.

The Borough Council explained that they are progressing well with assessing additional sites which fit with the Plan’s strategy.  They will propose some additional sites for allocation when they report back to the inspector towards the end of this year.

The inspector has suggested that they will need to undertake further consultation and that they should send the inspector monthly updates which will be posted on the examination webpage here:

Local Plan 2040 Examination | Bedford Borough Council

 

During the preparation of the plan (which has been rejected) there were two consultations which of were of particular concern to our parish.  The Issues and Options paper and the Call for Sites.  However, the draft plan did not include any of the sites proposed.

The brown option in the 2020 Local Plan Review Issues and Options Paper was one of six options.  It proposed urban based growth in Bedford Borough near the three towns of Bedford, St Neots (but over the country boundary in our parish which is in Bedford Borough) and near Rushden (around the Podington area).  Other options suggested development in a few new settlements or “Garden Villages”, along the A421 (and A1), near the East West Rail stations, in key service centres or dispersed amongst the villages.

The Parish Council circulated a flyer encouraging residents to respond to the paper in July 2020.

In response to this the Parish Council decided to start a Neighbourhood Plan at our Extraordinary Meeting on 6th August 2020 and the neighbourhood area was designated as the whole of Staploe Parish in September.

Documents related to the Neighbourhood Plan can be found here:

Neighbourhood Plan Documents

Please inform the Clerk (clerk@staploe-pc.gov.uk) if you are interested in joining the Neighbourhood Plan Steering Group.  Terms of reference for Steering Group

Minutes of our meetings are available here:  NDP Minutes

As part of the Local Plan Review (by Bedford Borough Council) in 2020-21 there was a “Call for Sites” and a large amount of land was submitted by landowners in our parish.

The areas shaded below were submitted.

To find out more about the call for sites please view the full details on Bedford Borough Council’s website.  The site works using google chrome. Click on the link, or copy and paste this link into chrome  https://bedford.opus4.co.uk/planning/localplan/maps/planning

Double click inside a red lined area to view details of the site submitted.

Here is Locality’s Roadmap  for making a Neighbourhood Plan.  We are not a Neighbourhood Forum as we are a parished area.  We have already designated the whole parish as the neighbourhood area and so the relevant informaion is from p6 of the roadmap – “Duty to Support”.   The costs of the Neighbourhood Plan are met by Locality with the Parish Council funding an additional hour of the Clerk’s time per week to administer the plan.

So far we have:

Here are some examples of Neighbourhood Plans:

Carlton and Chelington

Oakley

Bletsoe NDP and Appendices Submission Version_Redacted