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Update on Forum activities – 27th June 2021

Rossendale Draft Local Plan      

It took a lot longer than expected for the Council to complete their responses to the Inspectors’ Schedule of Actions which had been issued after the Examination Hearings in October 2019. They were eventually completed in February of this year with the consultation on them finishing on 22nd March. The Forum has reviewed all the responses in detail and submitted comprehensive representations to the Council on all which are relevant to Edenfield.

Screen captures of Rossendale Borough Council Website

The Council’s responses to the Schedule of Actions are available to view in Examination Library 8 on their website:

Examination Library 8 – Items arising from Action List document EL6.001 | Rossendale Borough Council

The consultation representations on these responses including those made by the Forum are available to view in Examination Library 9:

Examination Library 9 – Responses to the Inspectors’ invitation to comment re Examination Library 8 | Rossendale Borough Council

 On 2nd June the Council published Housing and Employment Land Updates with a two week consultation. These Updates have been produced to take into account changes to the National Planning methodology for the calculation of housing need which is the number of homes to be provided in the Local Plan. Because it is more than two years since the draft Plan was submitted to the Inspectors the Council can no longer rely on the housing need figure in the draft.  The Council’s proposal is to make only a small change to the number of homes to be built from 3,180 to 3,191 but the time period is increased from 15 years to 17 years. Again the Forum reviewed these and submitted detailed representations as part of the consultation process. The Updates and all of the consultation representations are available to view in Examination Library 10:

Examination Library 10 – Consultation on Housing and Employment Land Updates | Rossendale Borough Council

The next stage in this long drawn out process is for the Inspectors’ to issue a post Hearings letter which is expected soon. Following that the Council will publish their proposed Main Modifications to the Local Plan which will go to another consultation.

Edenfield Neighbourhood Plan

We eventually received the Council’s comments on the draft Neighbourhood Plan in January. We have now reviewed these in detail and have responded.

We are now working on updating the draft Plan to take into account these comments and make it ready for the Regulation 14 public consultation.

Annual General Meeting

We have still not been able to hold an AGM since the meeting scheduled for March 2020 was postponed. due to Covid. Hopefully restrictions will be lifted during July so that we will be able to arrange a meeting for later in the summer.

General Meetings are only open to members of the Forum but anyone who lives or works in Edenfield can join – just complete the application form on this website.

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Highways England and Chatterton Hey field

Chatterton Hey Field is at the bottom of Exchange Street and is owned by the Methodist Church. The Church has let us know that in the coming weeks Highways England will be doing drainage work on the southbound carriageway of the A56 bypass and they will be using part of the field for a compound for vehicles and equipment. A temporary track will be laid from the bottom of Exchange Street to the compound further down the field.

Aerial View of Chatterton Hey Field between Exchange Street and the A56

The Church are well aware that the field is well used by residents and they have been assured by Highways England that precautions will be in place to minimise the risk of accidents.

Do not panic if you see construction activity on the field – they are not building houses!

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Neighbourhood Plan Consultation – 29th February

Thank you to everybody who attended our consultation on the Edenfield Neighbourhood Plan on 29th February. It was very pleasing to see so much interest shown by residents in our plans for the future of the village.

Thanks also for all your comments which we will take into account when we update our plans.

  • ECNF consultation event 29th February 2020
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Edenfield Neighbourhood Plan Consultation

To: all residents and businesses of Edenfield

Saturday 29th February 10am to 2pm

Edenfield Community Centre, Exchange Street

A Neighbourhood Plan is a community-led framework for guiding the future development and growth of an area. Over the last eighteen months the Forum Management Committee has been working on a Neighbourhood Plan for the village. We now need your views on the work we have done and how you would like to see the village develop in the future. We will then take this information into account when finalising the Plan before it is put to Rossendale Council and an independent examiner.

If you would like a say in how Edenfield will evolve in the years to come or if you just want to see what is going on please call in and see us at the Community Centre anytime between 10am and 2pm on Saturday 29th February. There will be free tea, coffee and biscuits.

More information on Neighbourhood Plans can be found on the Locality website www.neighbourhoodplanning.org or by contacting us via this website: http://edenfieldcommunityforum.uk/contact-ecnf/

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Local Plan update

The Inspectors have now issued their post Hearings letter to the Council which is available to view on the RBC website. The letter does not contain any views on the soundness of the Draft Local Plan due to the amount of information that the Inspectors still require from the Council before they can complete their assessment.

The timetable for provision of this information (Schedule of Actions) has also been made available on the RBC website. This indicates that it will take about six months for all the information to be provided.

Some proposed modifications to the Plan were agreed between the Inspectors and the Council during the Hearings and they have now been collated and are also available on the RBC website (List of Main Modifications).

The link for all of these documents is:
https://www.rossendale.gov.uk/downloads/download/11276/examination_library_6_-_further_documents_following_the_close_of_hearings

The Inspectors’ letter mentioned above, requests the Council to produce a revised indicative timetable for production of the Local Plan. Once this is published we will have a better idea of when to expect the Inspectors’ final views on the Plan and the effect it will have on the future of our village. We will give a further update after this timetable is published.

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Public Examination Hearings Update

The Public Examination Hearings on the Rossendale Local Plan chaired by the independent Inspectors ended on 10th October after eighteen sessions spread over nine days. Our planning consultants and Forum representatives participated in thirteen of these sessions and Forum representatives observed the others. 

The Hearings concluded with the Inspectors requesting further information from the Council which they require before being able to make a decision on the soundness of the Plan. The Council had until 25th October to submit a timetable for providing the information on the list. The Inspectors will soon be able to issue their own timetable for the continuation of their review of the Local Plan and any other necessary actions such as any further public consultation.

It seems that it will be some time before we have a decision on Edenfield’s Green Belt. We will update the situation as and when we have further information.

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ECNF NewsLetter – August 2019

The Forum’s latest newsletter will be delivered to all homes and businesses in Edenfield in the next few days and is also available to view here : http://edenfieldcommunityforum.uk/wp-content/uploads/2019/08/Newsletter-August-2019.pdf .

The newsletter explains more about the work we and our planning advisors are doing to stop the release of village Green Belt land for development. This work centres on preparation for and attendance at the Public Hearings being held by the independent Planning Inspectors as part of their examination of the Council’s Draft Local Plan. The support for our fund raising so far has been excellent for which we are very grateful. However we estimate that we still need about another £7,000 to make sure that we can present the best possible case to the Inspectors at the examination.

Please support our efforts to save our village – details of how you can donate are in the newsletter.

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Draft Local Plan Update

Draft Local Plan Update

The Inspectors have now issued details of the public examination on the Council’s Draft Local Plan. The hearings will take place between Tuesday 24th September and Friday 11th October at the Council offices at Futures Park, Bacup. Edenfield Community Neighbourhood Forum (ECNF) and our planning consultants will participate in all sessions relevant to Edenfield. The general public can attend but only to observe.

The Inspectors have also issued an extensive list of MIQs (Matters, Issues and Questions) to all those who submitted representations to the Draft Local Plan in October last year and requested participation in the hearings. People or groups such as ECNF who made representations can make Hearing Statements on any of the listed matters, these have to be submitted by 30th August. The Forum will be submitting statements on all relevant matters.

Full details of the MIQs and the arrangements for the examination are available on the Council’s website at: https://www.rossendale.gov.uk/info/210148/local_plan/10629/emerging_local_plan/2

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Emerging Local Plan – RBC website

The planning inspectors have started to post information on the RBC website. This can be found under “Latest News” on the following page: https://www.rossendale.gov.uk/info/210148/local_plan/10629/emerging_local_plan/2

The inspectors have started to request information from RBC. This includes information related to Edenfield (paragraphs 5 and 6 under general of EL1.002a.)
They also say that they will be available for the public examination 2-3 weeks before 22nd September when the planning hearings are due to commence.

The Inspector, the Programme Officer (and, we assume, RBC) will post updates in this section of the website as necessary.