Included in the Localism Act 2011 is the ability for residents to shape their communities through Neighbourhood Forums,whose purpose is better described in the Planning Portal HERE.
A neighbourhood forum is designed to give residents a powerful voice in the shaping of their communities when new developments are planned. The Department of Communities and Local Government have the following opening sentence describing the policy,
“For too long communities have not had a big enough say in what happens in their local area – whether it be about what happens to local amenities, how local services are delivered, or how new development is planned.”
Surely, the right direction – to trust people to help design their communities.
It’s in this way that the residents of Deepcut are establishing a Deepcut Neighbourhood Forum. The forum held an open day last Saturday at the Deepcut Community Centre, in which they displayed their concerns and suggestions to visitors. I remarked at the time that it was a well attended event. What I didn’t do was say how impressed I am by the competence, and capability of the Forum.
Being a Lightwater resident, the topic of most concern to me is the potential increase in traffic volume, and the capacity of local roads to handle it. The photos, I hope, show aspects of the event. I was there for over two hours, a lot of which time was taken up talking with ‘Dusty’ Miller about local history – absolutely fascinating.
Lightwater 