Winslow Neighbourhood Plan

Winslow was one of the first communities in England to prepare a Neighbourhood Plan, and its first Plan was "made" (took effect) in September 2014. Work to update and modify that original Neighbourhood Plan, to take account of various changes over the intervening years, began in early 2021. Following extensive consultations the modified Winslow Neighbourhood Plan 2023-2033 was approved at a referendum on 16 March 2023. Subsequently Buckinghamshire Council (BC) formally "made" this modified Plan a part of the area's Development Plan.

A Neighbourhood Plan is the most local component of the area's Development Plan which steers planning decisions that affect the town. The Neighbourhood Plan is required to deliver the strategic policies set out in the area's Local Plan which, since September 2021, has been the Vale of Aylesbury Local Plan 2013-2033 (VALP). A copy of VALP can be found using this link to the Buckinghamshire Council web site.

VALP set the framework for updating Winslow's Neighbourhood Plan during 2021/23. In particular it set a target for additional housing in Winslow to be located on land which it had allocated for this purpose to the east of Great Horwood Road. At the same time the modified Neighbourhood Plan needed to accommodate BC's proposals for a Sports Hub, along with a business park, on land at Redfield. And once the sports facilities are relocated from the former Winslow Centre and Rugby Field sites, BC also has plans for development of this vacant (and substantially "brownfield") site within the town.

To support the town's community the Town Council has plans for the area which it refers to as the Heart of Winslow – with improvements to the existing Public Hall in 2022/23, and probably subsequent enhancements to the Sports Club facilities.

An initial consultation on ideas for the revised Plan were circulated widely in early 2021 and the feedback from this led to a formal consultation in early 2022 which focused on a pre-consultation draft Plan.

The following were the key documents circulated for that pre-submission consultation (each link in bold blue text is the hyperlink to the relevant document) :

• Revised Winslow Neighbourhood Plan 2022-2033 – pre-submission draft [45pages 3Mb]
• Revised Winslow Neighbourhood Plan 2022-2033 – consultation booklet [9 pages 4Mb]

A final draft of the Plan, taking account of feedback from the pre-consultation, was submitted on 10 May 2022 to BC for examination. This involved a further statutory consultation period and then a review of the Plan by a professional Examiner. The Examiner determined that a local referendum must be held to test the acceptability of the Plan to the local community, and he also required some relatively minor changes to the wording of certain policies. The referendum took take place on 16 March, and the majority of votes cast were YES in favour of the Plan. Accordingly BC subsequently "made" the Plan a part of the area's Development Plan, alongside VALP.

The six documents submitted to Buckinghamshire Council in May 2022 can be found through the following links :

• Modified Neighbourhood Plan [2Mb] This is the version that was submitted to Buckinghamshire Council in May 2022 and is not the version that was finally approved in March 2023.
• Consultation Statement [5.7Mb]
• Modification Statement [528Kb]
• Environmental Report [960Kb]
• State of the Town Report [3Mb]
• Basic Conditions Statement [480Kb]

A final version of the modified Winslow Neighbourhood Plan 2023-2033 was approved at a referendum on 16 March 2023. Subsequently Buckinghamshire Council (BC) formally "made" this modified Plan a part of the area's Development Plan. The link takes you to version 1.2 which incorporates very minor corrections for improved clarity.