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Applications for Neighbourhood Forum designation; Old Market Quarter and Lawrence Weston

On the 31 January 2013, the Council was able to designate Lawrence Weston and Old Market Quarter as Neighbourhood Planning Areas.

From the 8 February to 8 March 2013, the Council is inviting qualifying organisations to apply for Neighbourhood Forum designation for those newly designated areas.
Further guidance on qualifying criteria and how to apply is available via the BCC web page atwww.bristol.gov.uk/neighbourhoodplanning.

Any applications received for Neighbourhood Planning Forum designation will be published on Bristol City Council website for a 6 week consultation period between 15 March to 26 April 2013.
The council will then consider applications and comments and decide on the organisations that can be designated for each area by mid May 2013.
Once designated the Neighbourhood Planning Forums will be able to work towards the production of a Neighbourhood Development Plan for their area.

Please note: only one organisation can be designated for each Neighbourhood Planning Area.


Please confirm your NPN group details:
ACTION REQUIRED BY 1 MARCH

The map of the NPN groups is on Bristol City Council website on EXPLORE-BRISTOL
Also accessible via BCC Home page in the violet box on the RHSide, My Neighbourhood

Neighbourhood Planning Network is under the heading Council and Democracy

If you haven’t used this have a look: it has all sorts of useful information including conservation area boundaries, historical information, ward boundaries, planning applications, local authority assets etc. listed under the 4 sections Addresses & Asset, Historic and Local Information.

To bring up each level of information, tick in the Map column of the lists on the Left Hand side of the map

Please check the boundary for your group and let me know of any changes to boundaries and or names of groups by 1 March 2013. see link EXPLORE-BRISTOL

I will then be confirming that information to Bristol City council and this information will be updated, and the new Neighbourhood Planning Areas will also be put on the map.

Please talk to the other members of your group to agree who will be sending this information through. 

Note: not all members of your groups are on the mailing list for this newsletter,
please encourage all members to subscribe using this link

If you want to find out who is on the list for your area let me know.


Annual meeting topic

I have had no suggestions for annual meeting topics from members.

I think that it would be useful to look at the pre application process again which has developed since we last met, and in some cases has been changed by the Neighbourhood Partnership organisation, and in particular to have a discussion about how groups can deal with the issue of how they can represent the views of the local residents.

Near neighbours of development sites have in some planning application cases questioned the right of the planning groups to be the contacts for early discussions; it would be good to hear from groups whether this has been an issue for them and to discuss how groups can best deal with this issue.

This could be handled at a Quarterly meeting in discussion with the planning officers but I think that it might be better if the NPN groups came up with a solution themselves.

What do you think?