Parish Plans

Parish plans are a form of community-led plan that determine the future of communities and how they can change for the better. They are documents that set out our vision for the future of the parish and outlines how that can be achieved in an action plan.

We are currently promoting and directing resources to the neighbourhood development plan (NDP) initiative, but we will continue to recognise the important role parish plans can play in planning for the future and improving residents' quality of life.

Parish plans are often used as a key source of evidence for neighbourhood plans (which can have statutory weight in the planning system) and communities continue to produce them as useful reference documents for the parish council and partner bodies.

The best parish plans incorporate an 'action plan' which sets out succinctly the issues of most concern to the local community, identifies actions to address those issues, the main body (and any partner bodies) responsible for their implementation and the time scale within which implementation is sought. It is envisaged that the parish council will take responsibility for overseeing implementation of the actions and will hold the relevant body accountable if progress is not made. Action plans can be reviewed and updated at the annual general meeting.