Regulation 16 Consultation
South Cambridgeshire District Council is seeking your views on the Submission version of the Stapleford & Great Shelford Neighbourhood Plan during a consultation which runs from Wednesday 18 December to Wednesday 12 February 2025.
The Neighbourhood Plan has been prepared by Stapleford and Great Shelford Parish Councils and once finalised and adopted it will be used when making decisions on planning applications. The consultation is the last opportunity for the public to comment, before the Plan is examined by an Independent Planning Examiner. The Plan will then need to be passed by a referendum before being adopted. During the consultation, you can view the Neighbourhood plan and its supporting documents by clicking this link – view Neighbourhood Plan and Documents.
Comments can be submitted to South Cambridgeshire District Council between 9am on Wednesday 18th December 2024 and 5pm on Wednesday 12th February 2025. Please comment using the online consultation system.
However, if you are unable to comment on line, please email at: [email protected]
Or write to: Planning Policy Team. South Cambridgeshire Hall. Cambourne Business Park. Cambourne. Cambridge, CB23 6EA
During the consultation, you can view the Neighbourhood Plan and its supporting documents at South Cambridgeshire Hall, Cambourne by appointment only. Appointments can be made by calling 01954 713000.
It will also be possible to view the documents at Great Shelford Library, 10-12 Woollards Ln, Great Shelford, CB22 5LZ, during opening hours.
What is a Neighbourhood Plan?
A Neighbourhood Plan is a document that sets out what’s important to a particular community when it comes to planning matters. That could mean:
- What sort of housing gets built and where
- How our green spaces are used
- The kinds of amenities that are developed
- Protecting the natural environment.
And lots more besides.
Local communities have rights and powers to shape the future development of their area by preparing Neighbourhood Plans. These documents set out planning policies for a local area and are used to decide planning applications – for things like new homes, and for developments of amenities like shops, playgrounds or offices.
Neighbourhood Plans are written by and based on the views of the local community – the people who know and love the area – instead of the local planning authority.
It’s a way of shaping the places where we live.
What it is…
- A way of making sure that development meets the needs of our community
- Focuses on the use and development of land in our area
- A way of identifying specific development sites
- A channel for local people to have their say about what gets built or developed in their community
What it isn’t…
- A way of stopping all development
- A way of dealing with non-planning matters (e.g. traffic management, pot holes, or big transport projects like CSET or EWR)
- Immediate – Neighbourhood Plans take many months of consulting with the community, analysing data, policy creation and report writing
How does it fit in with the planning framework?
Our local plan is prepared by South Cambridgeshire District Council and sets the high level priorities for our area – but our Neighbourhood Plan will be prepared by us and full in the detail to make sure that development benefits our community.
Why do communities have them?
A Neighbourhood Plan is an opportunity to create a shared vision of what’s important to people in a defined locality.
We can then set out how we want our area to develop over the next 15-20 years to achieve this vision.
- Do we need different types of housing?
- Do we want more shops?
- What support do local businesses need?
- Do we want better parks or sports facilities?
- Perhaps we’d like things like more cycle paths.
- Or perhaps we really want to protect things that already exist, like heritage buildings or areas of woodland.
What’s been done so far?
You can read our monthly progress reports at https://www.greatshelfordparishcouncil.gov.uk/sgsnplan/sgsnplan-latest-news/. To summarise, the main stages in the development of our Neighbourhood Plan are:
| Neighbourhood Plan stage | Time |
| Neighbourhood Plan area designation | Nov 2016 |
| Initial Plan development | 2022 |
| Advanced Plan development | 2023 |
| Regulation 14 pre-submission consultation | 11 Mar to 30 Apr 2024 |
| Regulation 15 submission | Nov 2024 |
| Regulation 16 consultation | 18 Dec 2024 to 12 Feb 2025 |
| Independent examination | To be confirmed 2025 |
| Community referendum | To be confirmed 2025 |
As part of the neighbourhood planning process, a plan area must be designated to allow a scope of work to be produced. This was done in 2016. Our Neighbourhood Plan area covers the entire parishes (i.e. both the settled and unsettled areas) of Stapleford and Great Shelford, with Stapleford Parish Council acting as the qualifying body. Following designation, an initial Neighbourhood Plan steering group undertook work, on behalf of the two parish councils, over a two-year period for the purposes of developing the NP. However, unforeseen and unfortunate circumstances led to work on the NP losing momentum.
A new steering group emerged in late 2021. In 2022, we held a first period of community consultation to understand what matters to local people within set parameters where a NP may have some influence. Key themes emerging from this were taken forward for further investigation and, supported by a growing evidence base, led to the creation of a draft vision and objectives. Results of this initial community consultation can be viewed at https://www.greatshelfordparishcouncil.gov.uk/sgsnplan/neighbourhood-plan-consultations/.
A second period of engagement with residents and local workers – our ‘mid-term community consultation’ – was held in April-May 2023 to determine whether (a) the draft vision for the Neighbourhood Plan appropriately outlined residents’ and workers’ aspirations for our villages in 2040 and (b) the draft objectives adequately set out what needed to be done to achieve this vision. Outcomes are available at https://www.greatshelfordparishcouncil.gov.uk/sgsnplan/neighbourhood-plan-consultations/.
Pre-submission consultation was undertaken during March to April 2024, in line with Regulation 14 of The Neighbourhood Planning (General) Regulations 2012. The consultation involved residents, workers, business owners, local stakeholders (e.g. landowners), local organisations, statutory and other bodies with an interest in our Plan area. Regulation 14 consultation materials can be found at https://www.greatshelfordparishcouncil.gov.uk/stapleford-and-great-shelford-neighbourhood-plan-regulation-14-consultation/. Note that these are not the subject of the Regulation 16 consultation.
Development of our Neighbourhood Plan was, therefore, influenced by multiple stages of engagement with a broad range of stakeholders and we are very grateful to everyone who provided support and input along the way. The resulting submission version of the Plan was submitted to the local planning authority in November 2024, triggering the Regulation 16 consultation.
What happens next?
Comments received during the Regulation 16 consultation will be passed onto an independent examiner to determine whether our NP meets the legally binding ‘basic conditions’ required of it. If the examiner ticks the box against each of the basic conditions, then there will be only one more hurdle to jump (a community yes/no referendum) before the 21 planning policies in our Neighbourhood Plan become legally binding and used in the determination of all planning applications coming forward in Stapleford and Great Shelford parishes.
