As you know we have now completed our community consultation re the Vision and Objectives supporting this. We understand that, for this type of survey, a response rate of 35% can be considered a success so a huge “Thank You” to everyone who was involved in preparing and distributing this.

The analysis (undertaken for us by one of our volunteers) indicates that, generally, we seem to have got things right in terms of our Vision and the Objectives that will support this.

A common query was why 2036 was decided upon as the end date when the original statement indicated 2031? The reason for this is that West Dorset District Council is undertaking a review of their Local Plan and are working on the premise of housing supply until the new latter date. We therefore felt that it was both sensible and practicable to bring the Vision for the Yetminster & Ryme Intrinseca Plan area into line with this – we perhaps should have explained this in the questionnaire, but we felt we were a bit limited for space.

A number of people have taken advantage of the opportunity and have made additional comments to the various questions and we have, with the help of some volunteer stalwarts (again Thank You), now collated these so that the Focus Group leaders can review them with their working parties.

We have produced a working draft of the Neighbourhood Plan based on the guidance provided. However, we are unhappy with the Plan in this format and we are now in the process of redrafting this to make it simpler. I must stress that this is very much “work in progress” and that we do have slippage on our programme and the revised version, bearing in mind the work still to be done to contribute to it, is unlikely to be ready before September 2018.

You will also be aware that we have recently undertaken a “Call for Sites” and to date we have had 12 submissions from landowners outlining their proposals for sites that could be developed within the Parish.

Technical Support is available to help us and AECOM (who are partnering Locality who oversee NP Projects for Central Government) offer packages of independent advice designed to provide both information (evidence) and advice (professional judgement).

As such they can help to decide priorities and direction, draft policy, avoid legal challenges and engage with stakeholders, councils, local businesses and residents. In our case they are helping us with the site assessment process although no decision has yet been made on any of the proposals which will need to be reviewed against various criteria and for site visits to be made.

Part of the Neighbourhood Plan process is to ask West Dorset District Council (in the form of a Scoping Report) to decide whether we will need to undertake a full Strategic Environmental Assessment. Such assessments are intended to “protect the environment and contribute to the integration of environmental considerations with a view to promoting sustainable development” but the need to undertake one is depended on the scale of development proposed.

The good news is that WDDC feel that the scale of development likely to be considered in the Yetminster & Ryme Intrinseca Neighbourhood Plan, in combination with that already benefiting from planning permission, is unlikely to have significant effects on the environment (this is particularly helpful bearing in mind the amount of work involved in such SEA’s and the associated costs).

We do endeavour to keep the NP website up to date so do please use this to check on progress. Remember that if you have any questions or want to help with anything you can contact the Steering Group on yetminsterplan@gmail.com.