How has the plan been put together?

With the support of Ringwood Town Council, four task teams have been created, each focusing on a key aspect of the plan and how it can work for the local community. These are:

Town Centre 
Setting out a vision for the town centre as to how it should be developed and what uses would be acceptable. This involves looking at how the Market Place and High Street can become more vibrant and identifying eight Opportunity Areas for future improvement.

Design and Heritage 
Influencing the design of new homes and public open spaces to ensure quality development is a key aim of the plan. We have included a new design code, an assessment tool to be used as a consistent way of evaluating applications for major developments and have started to develop a list of properties that could be locally listed.

Environment
Delivering impactful climate change actions, raising the standard of design of development and green infrastructure to improve environmental outcomes. 

Housing
Looking at how to maximise the opportunities for young people to acquire their first home

What are the next steps for the Neighbourhood Plan?

Our draft Neighbourhood Plan Document was available for comments from Statutory Bodies and members of the public from 6th February to 19th March.

The consultation period for the Pre-Submission Ringwood Neighbourhood Plan has now closed.

We would like to thank everyone who took the time to attend one of our drop-in events and/or submitted comments.

The Steering Group will now take some time to analyse all the comments received and consider any amendments that are required, before making recommendations to the Town Council.

A revised document will then be submitted to the Local Planning Authorities for another period of consultation prior to independent inspection and finally a referendum.

We will keep you informed of progress.

We have also engaged Oneill Homer in the production of Neighbourhood Plan. Oneill Homer is the market leader in providing independent professional planning support in preparing Neighbourhood Plans. Since 2012, they have helped 127 projects across 47 different local planning authority areas from Dorset to Norfolk and from Worcestershire to Sussex.