Ottery St. Mary is thinking of setting aside obe-eighth of its precept (£20,000) to produce a neighbourhood plan.  “This money is one eighth of the budget,” he said. “Would the neighbourhood plan have had any difference to the 300 houses planned for Ottery St Mary?”

Answer: no.  Whilst there is no Local Plan and no 6 year land supply developers have the upper hand.

Once there is a Local Plan, that trumps everything including Neighbourhood Plans, so, at the moment a Neighbourhood Plan counts for nothing.

However, once there IS a Local Plan AND a 6 year land supply, any neighbourhood can then say what it wants to happen to any land not covered by the Local Plan.

It is certainly best if a council then puts together a Neighbourhood Plan because, if it does not, ANY group which has a connection to the area can take responsibility for preparing one, which could mean developers or Sainsbury’s or any other group with a tenuous connection to the area could put one together and might get it agreed.

However, East Devon District Council has the final say in whether a Neighbourhood Plan is acceptable to them – back to Square One!  Also, no agreed Neighbourhood Plan has yet faced legal challenge so who is to say that it would carry the full force of planning law – there are many instances of challenges being successful in similar circumstances.  Until enough case law is built up we can only hope that a well-researched, well-written Neighbourhood Plan with lots of robust evidence would meet these challenges.

So, an outlay of £20,000 might or might not protect Ottery from some inappropriate or unwanted development so perhaps on balance better to try than not!