Current Status of the Hampton-in-Arden Draft Neighbourhood Plan and the SMBC Local Plan.
20 June 2025
It is easy to confuse two current draft Documents, the Hampton-in-Arden Neighbourhood Plan and Solihull MBC’s Local Plan. The two are closely connected, and both have been beset by serious complications and delays over the last few years.
The currently approved Hampton-in-Arden Neighbourhood Plan was published in 2017 following an extensive process of consultation between 2014 and 2016.
The currently operational SMBC Local Plan was approved and published in 2013, after another extensive consultation process.
The Neighbourhood Plan is written by the Parish Council and seeks to influence the sort of development we wish to see in the Parish.
The Local Plan is produced by SMBC and represents their proposals to create the additional residential and commercial development required to deliver national and local economic objectives. Both plans are required by law to take a positive and enabling view towards future economic development.
The Neighbourhood Plan must align and comply with both the SMBC Local Plan, and the Government’s National Planning Policy Framework (NPPF). If it does not it cannot be approved.
Just as the current Neighbourhood Plan was being finalised in 2017, SMBC embarked on an exercise to update their Local Plan to deliver increased Government housing objectives. SMBC launched an extensive local consultation over potential sites, which resulted in additional, largely Green Belt, housing development sites being identified in the Parish off Lugtrout Lane, at Oak Farm, and next to Lapwing Drive.
This developmental pressure, coupled with the Parish Boundary border change in 2019 to embrace the whole of Catherine de Barnes, led the Parish Council to create a Working Group to draw up a new Neighbourhood Plan.
It had not been foreseen at the start of this process that there would be delays and disruption caused by:
· the outbreak and duration of the COVID pandemic.
· the lengthy examination and still unresolved finalisation of the SMBC Draft Local Plan.
· The updates and changes that would be made to the NPPF, particularly after the election of a new government in 2024 which substantially increased mandatory housing targets and changed the rules on Green Belt.
In 2020 the Parish Working Group launched a new consultation for a new Neighbourhood Plan and issued a total of 1282 questionnaires to households, 53 to local businesses and several to community groups.
This consultation was followed by creation of a draft Neighbourhood Plan which was put out for a six-week statutory consultation in February 2023. All households and businesses in the Parish, community groups, statutory bodies and neighbouring councils were invited to comment on the plan. 49 responses were received and reviewed by the Working Group.
In the meantime, Solihull’s Draft Local Plan met with a series of legal challenges. These challenges, coupled with government policy changes after the last election, led SMBC to withdraw its draft Local Plan in 2024 and agree to start again from scratch. This action, coupled with Government policy changes, forced the Parish Council to redraft its Neighbourhood Plan once again.
Based on advice, the latest version of the Draft Neighbourhood Plan is a modified version which aligns to the existing 2013 SMBC Local Plan and the 2024 NPPF update, but takes cognisance of proposed and likely development activities that have been identified since.
This Draft Neighbourhood Plan has just completed its statutory screening to confirm it aligns with all current environmental directives and laws, and is now ready for submission, via SMBC, for the next level of consultation.
Once we have finalised all the paperwork, we will submit it to SMBC for them to conduct a formal consultation exercise (known technically as a Regulation 16 Consultation). The main purpose of Regulation 16 Consultation is to provide a further platform for residents, businesses, and other interested parties to make their views known about the plan. SMBC will make the proposed plan publicly available, including on their website and through other channels likely to attract attention in the neighbourhood area. A deadline of at least six weeks will be set for representations.
Once this consultation is complete, and the plan amended if appropriate, it will be submitted for formal inspection for soundness and legal compliance. If it gets through that stage, it will go to a residents’ referendum for approval before final adoption.
SMBC have meanwhile commenced a new consultation process with a view to creating a new Local Plan to reflect how they will meet the substantially increased housing target stipulated by the current government. They have already issued a call for new sites and have received many proposals within the parish. They are carrying out their initial screening of these with a view to publishing their recommendations for additional developments. Once we get to that point there will be an opportunity for detailed local consultation and comment, possibly in the autumn of this year.