Seven Parishes in Partnership
Diss & District Neighbourhood Plan
ABOUT NEIGHBOURHOOD PLANS
What's it all about?
A neighbourhood plan such as the Diss and District Plan puts in place planning policy for a neighbourhood area to guide future development.
A neighbourhood plan is about the use and development of land and may contain a vision, aims, a planning policies, proposals for improving the area or providing new facilities, or allocation of key sites for specific kinds of development.
Neighbourhood plans cannot STOP development, but they can help to SHAPE it.
It may deal with a wide range of social, economic and environmental issues, such as housing, employment, design, heritage and transport, or it may focus on one or two issues only.
​
If successful at referendum, a neighbourhood plan will become part of the statutory development plan for the area. This statutory status gives neighbourhood plans far more weight than some other local documents, such as parish plans, community plans and village design statements.
​
A neighbourhood plan must meet certain specified 'basic conditions'. These ensure plans contribute to the achievement of sustainable development, have regard to national policy and guidance and are in general conformity with adopted strategic local planning policies.
​
A neighbourhood plan should not promote less development that that identifies in the local plan for the local area (such as new housing allocations). It can allow greater growth levels, providing it meets the basic conditions. It can specify policies and guidance on how new development should be designed, orientated and located.
Neighbourhood plans can be a powerful tool in shaping the development of a neighbourhood. The time frame for the neighbourhood plan will e for the communities to decide, whether it is is a 5, 10, 15 or 20 year plan.
BACKGROUND
A Neighbourhood Plan gives the local community the opportunity to set out their vision for the place they live in, to agree the amount and location of housing and commercial development, influence decisions about the services like education and healthcare and infrastructure such as roads and parking that should be part of it.
​
Diss and District Neighbourhood Plan Area includes Diss Town and the six encircling parishes of Roydon, Burston & Shimpling, Scole, Brome & Oakley, Stuston and Palgrave. These communities rely on Diss for most of their needs - Diss as a market town and its local businesses are supported by those living and working in them.
As each one is dependent on the others, those living and working in the area must have a say in how and where it should grow so that together the local councils can guide development of the plan.
​
Through initial consultation and an understanding and appreciation of the problems that we all face (such as lack of school places, traffic congestion, rat-running, inadequate medical facilities, etc) we have set out the challenges we think the plan needs to address.
We are proposing a simple statement setting out the vision of the place that we would like to make possible, we have also proposed a range of themes, along with our ideas and aims for what we want to achieve.
​
These themes are currently being fine tuned (and reality checked) and will be published on this site shortly, so watch this space!