What have we achieved?
The Questionnaire Results Exhibitions in St Mary’s church and Christ Church were closed at the start of September.
The questionnaire was published on May25th 2017 and ran until the 30th June. There were 1,156 responses completed representing around 50% of the Parish. A Full analysis of the Residents Questionnaire has now been published along with results of the Business questionnaire received 58 responses and these results are also included in the Questionnaire Results Exhibition in St Mary’s Church Goudhurst and and Christ Church Kilndown. The results exhibition was open from mid July until the start of September.
Analysis of the results showed some clear preferences around the type of housing needed and the scale of development. They also identified priority issues in the community and with few exceptions there is a consistent message that is shared across all age ranges.
We held an extremely successful open evening on the 24th May with 276 people counted through the door and standing room only. The meeting was recorded and is available on You-Tubeif you have the time! The evening gave an update on the NDP activities and with guest speakers from Tunbridge Wells Borough Council who presented their Issues and Options consultation (which has now closed). The evening launched the Residents Questionnaire.
Our efforts are running in parallel with the Tunbridge Wells Local Plan consultation which is open for public response from 2nd May to 12th June. We have listed the Issues and Options along with all evidence papers. Members of the TWBC planning team will be presenting at our open meeting on the 24th May. Make sure you give your feedback.
Our NDP is registered and approved by Tunbridge Wells Borough Council (TWBC) and it was agreed on 7th November that Goudhurst Parish was a ‘Designated Neighbourhood Area for the creation of an NDP. This means we can create a Neighbourhood Development Plan and our public meeting on the 10th September, attended by 238 people, saw a number of volunteers come forward to help start this process. A follow up meeting on the 10th October allowed us to create both a Steering group and the working groups. Most of the working groups have now completed their first meeting. Steering agenda and minutes can be found on this site.
The working groups have defined their scope and are working to understand the issues that face our community. It is important the the working groups develop an understanding of the needs of both business and residents and their and ambition for our parish. This is will become our ‘evidence base’ that and will be the foundation for our future dreams. The working groups will work through what we know about our parish and develop a set of questions that will allow us to create a better broader picture of Goudhurst and a vision for our community.
We have concluded our autumn workshops which started ini September and finished on October 21st. The workshops looked at all aspects of our community and covered
- Vision and Objectives – 9th September – The starting point for the overall process in this workshop was to create both a short and long term vision for the Parish setting the objectives of our Neighbourhood plan. Presentation: and Write-up
- Housing and Design – 23rd September – Housing is one of the most important areas for the Neighbourhood Plan and this workshop focussed on: developing; design policies, understanding the types of housing we need, selecting sites and managing change in the community over the next 15 years. Presentation: and write-up
- Traffic and Economy – 7th October – Traffic is an important issue across the Parish and this session looked at how we might address the issues raised in the Questionnaire. Presentation: and write-up
- Landscape and Community – 21st October – The questionnaire responses show that as a Parish our Landscape and Community is an extremely important part of life in Goudhurst and the things we value, the facilities we use and our concerns all contribute to our overall quality of life. Presentation: and write-up
We have also completed our Sustainability Analysis Scoping document which we will use to measure any proposals developed for consideration in the plan.