Neighbourhood Plan Public Consultation – April 2021

In the March edition of the Ixworth Magazine the Neighbourhood Plan Working Group informed us that there would soon be a further phase of public consultation on the Plan. Green Ixworth’s aims and objectives include a desire to improve the built environment and thereby promote the wellbeing of residents while helping nature to flourish. The reduction of greenhouse gas emissions and the promotion of sustainable transport sit high in our list of objectives. We believe that it is essential for residents to engage in the NP consultation process and have their say on the nature of future developments.

The NPWG have indicated that the NP is to include a proposal for a settlement boundary for Ixworth Thorpe and this is an issue which may require some background information. If Ixworth Thorpe were to have a settlement boundary it would allow the expansion of the hamlet by the building of small housing developments. Such a measure is deemed undesirable by the West Suffolk planning authorities because Ixworth Thorpe is an unsustainable place for development, that is to say that it has no facilities and residents have to travel by car to access all their needs. Ixworth Thorpe has no bus service. West Suffolk’s Local Plan specifies a hierarchy of settlements with major centres like Bury at the top and ‘infill villages’ like Pakenham at the bottom. Any collection of housing not on their list is defined as ‘countryside’ and Ixworth Thorpe falls into that category.

The Local Plan does contain an alternative mechanism in the form of a Rural Exception Site which would permit the building of permanently-affordable housing despite the absence of a settlement boundary. This would suffer the same sustainability issues as above, however, it would suit households listed on West Suffolk’s Housing Register as being in housing need at Ixworth Thorpe; there were two such households in 2019. The RES model has been proposed previously but it was rejected by the local landowner.

Before March 2020 the Neighbourhood Plan was under the management of a group of volunteer residents augmented by nominated parish councillors. They considered these matters and rejected the settlement boundary so why has this subject resurfaced?

The boundary was first suggested to the NPWG in August 2019 by a parish councillor who was a member of the NPWG at the time. This councillor had a planning application in place for Ixworth Thorpe which had recently been rejected as being unsustainable. Discovery of this information led to a dispute between the PC and the NPWG which triggered a chain of events the effects of which are being felt in practical terms by Ixworth residents to this day.

In December 2019 the PC met and resolved that it would investigate the establishment of a settlement boundary for Ixworth Thorpe on its own account. In taking this decision they stated that they found it ‘strange’ that a planning application which they had supported in Ixworth Thorpe had been rejected, while a similar one had been accepted in Pakenham. Their surprise at the planning decision seems odd given the clear provisions of the Local Plan.

The NP is now being managed directly by the PC and the boundary has been resurrected. Green Ixworth’s Management Committee is of the opinion that a settlement boundary for Ixworth Thorpe would be wholly inappropriate for the entirely justifiable reasons laid out by the Local Plan.

It is important that the maximum possible number of residents involve themselves in the forthcoming consultation. If residents have comments or suggestions about what is being proposed they should make individual responses to the NPWG in order to give an indication of the strength of local opinion. In addition Green Ixworth, as a local organisation committed to improving the built and green environment, will also make a submission and we would welcome members’ views on its content.