Fawkham Neighbourhood Plan receives a ‘Yes’ vote from residents – February 2025
We are delighted to say that the Neighbourhood Plan can now be adopted following a ‘yes’ vote by residents of the parish at the referendum held on 13th February 2025.
84.7% of those residents who voted, voted ‘yes’ to the question ‘Do you want Sevenoaks District Council to use the neighbourhood plan for Fawkham to help it decide planning applications in the neighbourhood area?’ 15.3 % voted ‘no’. Turnout was 34.98%.
The Plan will now be ‘made’ by Sevenoaks District Council at their meeting on 25th February and will then become part of the development plan, used when making decisions and recommendations on planning applications in the parish.
The positive endorsement of the Neighbourhood Plan by the local community is testament to the ‘bottom up’ approach of the Plan, involving community surveys, public consultations and the gathering of evidence by local community volunteers to underpin the 14 planning policies in the Plan. We have been ambitious with the Plan, and policies include giving stronger protection to landscape character and views, woodland and hedgerows, open spaces and public rights of way, and requiring biodiversity measures to preserve or enhance the local ecological network, amongst many other things.
The Neighbourhood Plan is also resulting in a number of projects in the Parish, including providing interpretation boards describing the history and biodiversity of different areas, replacing the Parish signs, improving footpaths, and endeavouring to make improvements to the open space at Small Grains.
We would like to thank members of the Neighbourhood Plan Steering Group, the consultants we employed, all those in the community involved in helping to create and shape the Plan, and whomever came out to vote, and look forward to the Neighbourhood Plan being used effectively by Sevenoaks District Council to determine future planning applications in Fawkham.
The final version of our Neighbourhood Plan can be found here: Fawkham Neighbourhood Plan and all the supporting evidence here: Key Documents.
Fawkham Neighbourhood Plan Passes Examination – October 2024
We are very pleased to say that the Examination of our Neighbourhood Plan has been completed and that the Examiner recommends the Plan proceeds to referendum, following some modifications.
Sevenoaks District Council appointed DEREK STEBBING BA (Hons) DipEP MRTPI, of Intelligent Plans and Examinations (IPE), as Independent Examiner of our Fawkham Neighbourhood Plan.
The Examiner published his final report on 24 October 2024.
Sevenoaks District Council formally approved the Plan at their Cabinet meeting on December 12th: SDC Decision Statement.
The Examiner made some amendments, or modifications, set out in the Appendix to his report. These were mostly detailed matters to make sure the Plan’s policies have the necessary regard to national policy or SDC’s adopted strategic policies. He also removed the policy on allocating a site for car parking at Small Grains, because SDC, who own the land, will not make the site available for this. You can read his report here: Examiner’s Report.
As the Examiner said: “It is clear that the Fawkham Neighbourhood Plan is the product of much hard work since 2019 by the Parish Council, the Neighbourhood Plan Steering Group and the many individuals and stakeholders who have contributed to the development of the Plan. I am satisfied that the Plan reflects the aspirations and objectives of the Fawkham community for the future development of their area up to 2040. The output is a Plan which should help guide the area’s development over that period in a positive way and it should inform good decision-making on planning applications by Sevenoaks District Council”.
We would like to thank all those who took the time to participate by being involved in workshops, visiting the exhibition and completing surveys over the past few years. We only reached this stage through the involvement of the community.
The Examiner raised some preliminary questions with Fawkham Parish Council (FPC) and Sevenoaks District Council (SDC) to which both Councils responded. The preliminary questions and the responses can be found below:
Further details can be found on SDC’s website here: https://www.sevenoaks.gov.uk/info/20069129/current_local_plan/732/fawkham_neighbourhood_plan
An exhibition detailing the draft Plan was held in summer 2023, alongside a questionnaire seeking feedback on its content. 73 questionnaires were completed – 68 from Fawkham residents. Careful consideration was given to all comments, and the Plan amended accordingly.
SDC then publicised the Plan through a further consultation process, which ran for 6 weeks from 7th June to 19th July 2024. We are grateful to the 46 residents who took a look at the final proposed Neighbourhood Plan and gave us their support. Responses were also received from a number of organisations such as Natural England, Environment Agency and Kent County Council, as well as from other local Parish Councils and our three District Councillors. Only one objection was received.
The Plan was then submitted for Examination to an Examiner independent of both SDC and FPC. We hope the Examiner recommends we proceed to a referendum vote amongst residents on the adoption of the Plan, to sit as legal document used to determine planning applications alongside SDC’s Local Plan and the National Planning Policy Framework. The timescale for this vote is not yet known, although we hope it will take place later this year or early next year.
We recognise that the Parish has evolved throughout its long history to meet changing needs and understand there continues to be a need to evolve. But we also recognise the distinctiveness provided by the landscape, heritage and character – assets that should be protected to ensure Fawkham’s sense of place in the Green Belt in the North Downs area of Kent. What came through from evidence gathering and engagement with residents is the desire to protect the beautiful Kent Downs landscape, with its woodland, open fields, biodiversity and panoramic views, as well as maintaining our community facilities and local economy, protecting our heritage and meeting the very small need for housing originating from the Parish, and thereby allow what is a small rural Parish to retain all that it values highly.
Background information:
A six week public consultation was held on the draft Regulation 14 Fawkham Neighbourhood Plan, which closed on 14th August 2023. We have been talking to residents and businesses in the Parish since 2019, asking what they think about Fawkham Parish now and how they would like to see it in the future. This has enabled us put together a draft Neighbourhood Plan for Fawkham Parish – and we wanted to know what you think.
What is a Neighbourhood Plan?
A Neighbourhood Plan guides the development of land and buildings in a parish, It is created by the local community, led by the Parish Council. It gives us a legal say in local planning matters. It is a relatively new type of planning document for Fawkham and is produced by the Parish. It is part of the Government’s approach to planning which aims to give local people more say about what goes on in their area.
The results of the Parish Survey of 2019 led the Parish Council to believe writing a Neighbourhood Plan would be a good idea and, following consultation with residents, the unanimous decision was made in December 2020 to go ahead with preparing one.
Since then, the Parish Council and the volunteers of the Neighbourhood Plan Steering Group have undertaken further public consultation and engagement activities to ensure that the content of the Plan reflects what local people want. This information has been used to develop background evidence for the Plan and also to commission studies to support the Plan’s policies.
If passed at a local referendum, the Neighbourhood Plan will be adopted by Sevenoaks District Council and must be used to determine planning applications in the Parish. It will become part of the Development Plan alongside SDC’s Local Plan, which looks at the District as a whole. Sevenoaks Town has already adopted a Neighbourhood Plan, and Swanley is also at an advanced stage. Several other Parishes are in the process of preparing one, including Hartley and Ash-cum-Ridley.
The Plan will provide the local community with a powerful tool to guide the long term future of Fawkham Parish.
The Plan contains a vision for the future of the Parish and sets out clear planning policies to realise this vision. These policies include protecting the landscape, with its woodland, open fields, ecological biodiversity and panoramic views; maintaining our community facilities and local economy; protecting our heritage and meeting the very small need for housing originating from the Parish.
A Neighbourhood Plan cannot stop development: it must support the strategic needs set out in the Local Plan. This means it cannot prevent development identified in the Local Plan; there are no sites allocated by SDC in their draft Local Plan, although this has yet to be examined. Housing developments have recently been granted permission by SDC at Salts Farm depot (26 units), Fawkham Manor hospital (26 units) and Gay Dawn Farm (9 units).
How was it been put together?
Fawkham Parish Council set up a Steering Group of Parish Councillors and local residents to develop the Neighbourhood Plan. The Draft Plan has been shaped by the views of residents and brings together results of our community engagement workshops and surveys, and evidence gathered by our volunteer Steering Group. We have been supported in this by a professional planning consultant.
How was the community been involved?
During development of the Plan, we engaged with the people of Fawkham Parish and others with an interest in the area. This included:
- A formal consultation on a draft Plan in the summer of 2023, which included exhibitions detailing its content at the village hall and a questionnaire seeking feedback. 73 questionnaires were returned to us, 68 of which were from residents
- A workshop in July 2022 looking at what is important to residents and how they wish to see the Parish in the future
- A workshop seeking input to the report on the local landscape in spring 2022
- A business survey sent to all houses and all businesses in spring 2022
- A survey seeking views on the countryside in autumn 2021
- A survey for children at Fawkham School in autumn 2021
- A picnic at Small Grains looking at site-specific issues in 2021
- A survey sent to all households in 2019
- Stalls at the church fetes in 2021, 2022 and 2023
To see previous updates on the Neighbourhood Plan, please visit: Neighbourhood Plan News
For information on the Steering Group, click here: Steering Group
You can find more information on the following pages:
If you’d like to find out more about Neighbourhood Plans in general, you can visit:
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