Colehill Neighbourhood Plan – Colehill Parish Council

Latest Position

It was agreed at Council on 8th November 2022 to stop all work on a Neighbourhood Plan for Colehill for the following reasons:
- Many of the priority topics identified by residents in the Household Survey can be progressed without a Neighbourhood Plan, only a few of the topics would be aided by a Neighbourhood Plan being in place.
- Our councillor numbers, coming out of Covid, are significantly depleted and we have a heavy workload of projects & improvement initiatives underway and in plan.
- There are many uncertainties in the wider planning environment: Dorset Council have withdrawn their initial draft Local Plan, and extended their timescales until 2026; the Government have announced they intend making significant reforms to the planning system.

A Neighbourhood Plan allows our community to decide on the planning policies we want for our area. Once approved it will have legal force, and will sit alongside the Dorset Council Local Plan to direct future decisions on planning applications for our area. It will lay out a vision for how we want the Colehill area to develop over the next 10 to 20 years to meet our local needs, by setting policies on such things as house design, environmental standards that must be met, and associated infrastructure that will be supported.
See ‘What is a Neighbourhood Plan?’ for more information, including the likely benefits for Colehill and frequently asked questions.
Work officially started on 2nd June 2021 when Dorset Council agreed to designate our parish area, see the ‘Neighbourhood Area’ for a map showing the area covered by the Neighbourhood Plan, which is the civil parish of Colehill. As well the village of Colehill, this includes areas such as Furzehill, Canford Bottom, Stapehill Crescent, Hayes Lane, The Vineries, Beaucroft Road, Highland Road and Giddylake.
See the ‘Mini Surveys’ page for details of the initial surveys conducted to both households and businesses to identify the key priority areas the Neighbourhood Plan should focus on.
We received 621 responses to our Mini Household Survey in August 2021 to identify residents priorities, and this will be used to shape our activities over the next few years.

In June 2008 a Parish Plan for Colehill was developed with input and support from many local residents. Many of the recomendations were implemented in subsequent years. Although this document is now out of date, a link is retained here for future reference.