What is really going on with Wantage Neighbourhood Plan, by its former chairman Julie Mabberley

AS chairman of Wantage Neighbourhood Plan Steering Group and the person who has read and analysed all comments and critiques from residents of the town throughout the process so far, I want to explain what has happened with it.

Firstly: we have consulted the residents of the town and the surrounding catchment area on a number of separate occasions.

1. A residents survey received 1,580 responses. Key messages were to improve the green infrastructure of the town and improve the town centre and parking.

2. A stakeholder meeting for 40 representatives of the key organisations in the town obtained their views on the policy areas identified in the survey results.

3. We prepared a draft plan and sent it out for comment. We received about 400 responses and went through them all, replying to each person giving details of what we were doing in response to their comment. As a result of the comments, the plan changed significantly.

4. We issued a pre-submission plan, we mailed a news sheet containing details of the changes to every household in OX12 and made copies of the plan available. We received over 200 comments. Once again we went through replying to each person giving details of what we were doing in response to their comment. As a result of the comments, some minor changes were made to the plan (mainly in connection with green spaces).

5. This updated plan was submitted to the district council, who did their own consultation and submitted it to an inspector.

We had a consultant working with us from the inception of the plan until the production of the first draft. After that our only support was the Neighbourhood Planning Officer from the Vale. All work on analysis and preparation of documents was done by unpaid volunteers.

Because of our inexperience and lack of support we failed to demonstrate this evidence of nearly 1,500 documents to the inspector. I’m not saying that the plan would have passed with a clean sheet if we had presented it better but we do have a significant amount of evidence which we may have failed to present properly.

I hope that the revised plan being prepared by the town council will keep the policies which meet residents’ aspirations.

This means including a town centre policy which reflects the views of the townsfolk and all of those who used the facilities of the town and an employment policy which encourages employment to come or at least stay here.

The plan must show the footpaths and cycleways and those areas where improvements are required in these networks so that developer funds can best be spent to best effect.

The plan can recognise the green open spaces which do exist and which are special to our townsfolk and which match the criteria required by national planning policies and have sufficient evidence to support the designation.

Parking was a big issue in all responses we have received and the plan should look at ways of improving parking provision both for the town as a whole and on new developments.