Great Glen Parish Council Neighbourhood Plan Steering Group Meeting
Minutes - Monday 1 September 2014at 6:30 pm in the Parish Office
Present
Andrew Towlerton
Dawn Kirkwood – Archaeological Warden
Ann Parrott – Councillor
Jane Arthur – Councillor
Cindy Andrews – Chair of Parish Council
John Martin - Resident
Tim Gascoigne – Councillor
Simone Gibson – Resident
Cee Martin – Chair of the Great Glen Wildspace Group
Sue Parkinson – Post Mistress
Jenny Ritchie – Resident
Lesley Sanderson – Clerk to the Parish Council
Welcome and introductions - Everyone introduced themselves to the rest of the group and advised
of any particular interests that maybe relevant to the plan.
Action points arising from meeting on 17 July – The group discussed the minutes of their previous
meeting so that all were up “to speed”. A few more questionnaires were handed over and would be
passed to Your locale.
Declarations of Interest -none advised.
Funding Update (Awards for All application) – The clerk advised that the offer from Awards for All
had arrived that day.
Review of Saturday event
Andrew advised that generally people had commented about the recreational space and the
standards. He advised that early indications were that Great Glen was below standard measured
against population, there was a particular need for more facilities for younger people. This included
the requested 3G play area and a concrete skate park.
Housing- the opinion was expressed that there should be less development especially new housing,
facilities did not keep up with developments.
Shopping – more variation required.
Protect habitat for the wildlife and protect hedgerows.
Other – School places insufficient
Public access to Grammar School had been commented on.
Policy Development – Mapping exercise
The Local Plan was discussed and Andrew advised that this was the District’s view on where houses
and types of houses would be. This had been produced following the Strategic Housing Land
Availability Survey which had identified sites and the landowners contacted. The map of this was
displayed and the key sites to the south of the area discussed. Andrew advised that the
Neighbourhood plan would allow Great Glen greater control to determine how and if these sites
would be developed.
A further discussion took place around further development and the fact that the village of Great
Glen had already had their allocation of new homes as set in the current district plan. There was
further discussion over the facilities that were lacking within the village currently and the school
places were mentioned along with transport and parking.
The clerk to contact the HDC planning department over the current provision within the plan.
Issues of employment and whether areas of employment should be protected from development
were discussed.
Open Space
The map of the current open spaces was shown and some areas not included were identified e.g.
The Burton Brook site, the clerk advised that further sites had been identified and marked.
Important green spaces needed to be identified and these had great importance from a
neighbourhood planning point of view.
These could include:
Areas of great beauty
Historical significance
Public access
Reasonably close to the community
Recreational Value
Tranquillity
The committee was asked to look around and try and identify any areas that they felt should
additionally included, lakes etc. the hobby farm off the river and the school fields were given as an
example.
The Neighbourhood plan should also identify and protect along with green spaces, community assets
that they felt needed protection ie a pub therefore if it came up for sale the community would have
the option to purchase it to keep and protect it for the village as a community asset.
Andrew asked if members before the next meeting could identify areas of green space and
community assets and mark them with the traffic light symbols (red/amber/green) with red for no.
on a map.
Update on Questionnaire
The responses from the questionnaire were going well with between 10% and 20% response rate.
Findings were emerging and they would be provided for the next meeting.
Any other business Nothing
Future meetings – Next meeting was scheduled for 30th September at 6.30pm.
The group were asked to give their findings to the clerk by 25th September and communication
between the group was encouraged.
The clerk to get the latest green space map from HDC and circulate.
The meeting closed at 7.50pm.