There have been many frustrating delays in getting the Neighbourhood Plan progressed after submission in September 2016.
CBC did not accept that the Basic Conditions had been fulfilled. Essentially this hinged on an objection from Natural England, one of the statutory consultees, who insisted that the Wivenhoe plan should take account of the in-combination effects on the environment of other surrounding plans.
This meant CBC’s new Local Plan, which at that point was still in its consultation stage.
The NP review group sought to overcome this difficulty by formulating a Habitats Regulation Assessment addendum and adding a Mitigation policy to the draft.
It was also decided to seek assistance from the Neighbourhood Planning Independent Examiner Referral Service (NPIERS).
Comments from NPIERS led to further fine tuning of the draft plan’s policies though no material changes were necessary.
All this has taken many volunteer hours to accomplish.
The revised WNP was completed in November 2017.