Your Neighbourhood
The Bude-Stratton Neighbourhood Plan is all about land use planning; housing, business, green space, leisure facilities, environment and employment. It has afforded local people and businesses the opportunity to develop their own ideas about where they live and work and for these ideas to become part of the emerging Cornwall Local Plan.
Bude-Stratton Town Council led the development of the plan, working with local businesses, residents, environmental groups and interest groups. The plan sets out planning policies that reflect local issues and projects residents would like to see happen over the coming years. It will be used to help Cornwall Council planning officers determine whether planning applications should be approved or refused. It also puts the community in a better position to secure funding and bring forward projects that will make a difference to local people.
Bude-Stratton Neighbourhood Plan aims to maintain and enhance the area as a vibrant coastal settlement offering a high quality sustainable environment and a choice of homes and jobs as well as a range of recreational opportunities. It also includes policies to protect the conservation areas in Stratton, Bude and Poughill. It particularly seeks to preserve the historic settlement of Stratton and prevent any further coalescence of Stratton, Bude and Poughill.
Bude-Stratton Town Councillor, Lea Deely, Chair of Council’s Neighbourhood Plan Steering Group, said: “The Bude-Stratton Neighbourhood Plan is a means of enabling local people to have a stronger influence on the way in which they wish to see their community develop. The plan will help ensure that we continue to develop the area in a way that will provide suitable housing and employment for all our residents without damaging the character of our three settlements.”
Neighbourhood plans are developed with extensive public consultation and engagement and are scrutinised by an independent examiner before being put to a local referendum. Once a neighbourhood plan is adopted as a statutory document, the plan’s policies must be taken into account by developers and the relevant authorities when planning applications are considered. The Bude-Stratton Neighbourhood Plan received strong support from the local community in 2016 with 85% of those voting in the referendum in favour of the plan. Of those who voted 2,669 were for the plan and 377 against.