Dear Resident,
Thank you for taking the time to respond to my housing survey. I have been blown away by the feedback.
Apologies for the delay in sending you the results. The feedback has been great and given me a few extra headaches collating the data. Both sets of elections in May meant a further delay. This was then delayed again by the massive influx of new members joining the Liberal Democrats nationally and in North Shropshire – we have grown by over 140% in the constituency since the beginning of May 2019. As the local party chair that has kept me very busy.
I have also waited some more for the final pieces of the jigsaw before sending the results.
Two large elections further disrupted my plans. This year started with a planned Focus for February. Following the Coronavirus outbreak, after several dozen re-edits, I suspended campaigning across North Shropshire and the leaflets were abandoned.
After this somewhat protracted process, I wanted to share them with you first.
Regards,
David
Here are the Housing Survey results for Whittington & Park Hall, the overall results for Whittington Division, an update on the process and where we go from here
Here are the highlights for Whittington & Park Hall:

91.7% didn’t agree with the expansion of Oswestry towards Park Hall

86.4% didn’t agree with suggested garden village
Jump to the overall results for Whittington DivisionWhat happens next?
The draft Local Plan is now in its production stage. The completed plan is expected to be ready by the end of Spring. It is running behind. Shortage of staff and a large response I imagine. It should have been out by the end of 2019. The plan will then be formally consulted on before being examined by a Government planning inspector. The schedule was published by Shropshire Council in May last year:
https://www.shropshire.gov.uk/media/12835/local-development-scheme-2019.pdf
Publication of the Pre-Submission draft Plan was set to happen in March 2020 and then delayed until May 2020. Thanks to Coronavirus this has been delayed again until July 2020. There will be a consultation between July and September. Cabinet and Council will adopt the pre-submission in December with submission to the Secretary of State and examination set for early 2021.
The planning Inspector could take a year to finalise and for any changes to be recommended.
Shropshire Council had set October 2021 as the target date for adopting the inspected and amended plan. This has now been pushed back to 2022.
The damage has been done with respect to the Parish Council’s vote to become a hub. However, I have not yet lost hope of removing hub status. It isn’t as simple as the PC withdrawing their support but I will push for this. The focus needs to turn to objecting to the final consultation Pre-Submission draft Plan. Further objections can be raised with the planning inspector during their inspection of the plan.
I intend to send out an email Newsletter to residents with regular updates on this and other issues of interest. I will of course also be putting this into a Focus leaflet nearer the time.
Once again I would like to thank you for taking the time to fill in my Housing Survey. I will be acting on the comments I have received. If you have any further views on this or any other issue I would love to receive them.
Overall results for Whittington Division:

75.7% said too many houses since 2011

Overall mix got a rating of 4.5 out of 10.
0 and 7 out of 10 scored the highest but the overall balance of distribution was just towards the mix of housing not meeting needs of area.
4.5 out of 10 being the centre of the Normal Distribution.

59.4% said the house built didn’t suit character of area

On balance, more people thought houses were too big

More people thought houses had too many bedrooms

Most people thought open market housing should be built on exception sites & not just affordable housing

The majority of responses thought that there weren’t enough affordable homes to rent in the division

The majority also thought that there weren’t enough affordable homes to buy in the division

On balance most people thought there had been too many open market houses in the division

For respondents the need for bungalows is apparent

The majority want 3 bedroom homes with 2 bedrooms the next favoured option

People overwhelmingly backed the CPRE growth figures. Only 2.9% backed Shirehall’s target
