VISION AND POLICIES
Vision
3.1 The Vision for the Leighton-Linslade Neighbourhood Plan is:
“A 21st century market town that thrives on the strength of its heritage, community,
environment and entrepreneurs/creatives.”
Objectives
The objectives of the Neighbourhood Plan are:
- To promote Leighton Buzzard Town Centre as a modern market town, with a vibrant daytime and evening economy; developing creative and cultural experiential opportunities alongside a strong retail offer.
- To expand the range of social infrastructure to promote good health, actively reduce social isolation and health inequalities and encourage community cohesion.
- To celebrate local heritage through recognition of key buildings and locations as well as the creation of dedicated space to display the history of the parish, including its archaeology.
- To ensure new development promotes high standard in design, including maximising energy efficiency measures.
- To build on our experience as a Cycle Town to promote active travel and public transport opportunities, improving connectivity between the town centre and the wider community, reducing congestion and encouraging reduced use of the private car for short journeys.
- To strengthen green and blue infrastructure, ensuring all residents have access, via active and sustainable modes of travel, to high quality places and spaces to support physical and mental wellbeing.
- To build on the existing initiatives to improve biodiversity, such as the bee-friendly wildflower planting areas and tree planting measures, by ensuring protection of green spaces which can provide enhanced habitats to enable flora and fauna to thrive in harmony with the community.
- To enable support for climate change mitigation measures and carbon reduction across the community, as well as planning for the possible impact of increasing extreme weather conditions.
The Neighbourhood Plan contains thirteen policies, each of which is intended to contribute to one or more of these objectives. Each policy has a code number and title, and the policy wording is in Bold text. Below each policy is some supporting text to explain the intent of the policy and how it should be understood by applicants and applied by CBC to planning applications. The justification of each policy will be contained in the Basic Conditions Statement. Where a policy applies to specific land or sites in Leighton Linslade this is shown on the Policies Map.
Policies
Information
The Neighbourhood Plan will form part of the Development Plan for the area will be implemented through Central Bedfordshire Council’s consideration and determination of planning applications for development in the Town. The Town Council will monitor the effectiveness of the policies through the development management process. In addition, Central Bedfordshire Council will monitor the implementation of Neighbourhood Plan policies, once adopted, through the Authority Monitoring Report which is published annually. This report is prepared in consultation with the relevant town and parish councils each year.
The Town Council will use a combination of the Local Plan and this Neighbourhood Plan policies to inform and determine its responses to planning applications. The Town Council is a statutory consultee on planning applications made in the Town and it will be made aware of any future planning applications or alterations to those applications by the planning authority. It will seek to ensure that the Neighbourhood Plan policies have been identified and applied correctly by applicants and by officers in their decision reports.
The success or otherwise of the policies will feed into the assessment of the need for a review of the Plan.
Opportunities may arise through S106 agreements or through the Community Infrastructure Levy (CIL) to secure financial contributions to invest in improving local infrastructure. Should Central Bedfordshire Council implement a CIL regime, once Neighbourhood Plan is made the Town Council will be able to determine how and where 25% of the CIL collected from schemes in the Town is spent (currently only 15%) in accordance with the CIL Regulations.
LLTC kindly acknowledges the help of the following in the production of the LLNP:
- Leighton Linslade Neighbourhood Plan Steering Group
- Central Bedfordshire Council
- Locality
- ONH Planning for Good