Neighbourhood planning

Contact your parish or town council for information about getting involved in neighbourhood planning in Hertfordshire.

In areas with no parish or town council, community groups can act as the basis for neighbourhood planning. You'll need to join or apply with others to become a neighbourhood forum. Search the Hertfordshire Directory for groups and see the National Association for Voluntary and Community Action website.

You can get involved with some of the planning processes that impact on your neighbourhood, such as commenting on plans and planning applications, as an individual.

Communities, including local businesses, can also ask their district or borough council to consider introducing a Local Development Order (LDO).

An LDO allows councils to grant planning permission for certain types of development, and is similar to a Community Development Order, except that it is led by the council, rather than the community. 

Hertsmere Borough Council has an LDO in place for Elstree Way (PDF 7.51mb) opening in a new window. 

The neighbourhood planning process should be led by communities. 

District and borough councils can help – mainly with technical and procedural issues, such as running a referendum on a proposed neighbourhood development plan.

The government has given funding to four organisations to provide communities with assistance:

• Planning Aid
• Locality
• CPRE
• The Prince's Foundation.

Get support from the Design Council.

See the My Community website for information about rights that are available for communities. Find out about Neighbourhood Plans and Development Orders, and community rights to bid, build and challenge. 

See these sites for more information:

• Locality's My Community Rights
• Action with Communities in Rural England

 

Communities aren't required to have a neighbourhood plan.

Your district or borough council's local plan will still be used to determine planning applications in your community, so you won't be left without a plan if your local community doesn't have a neighbourhood plan in place.  

Neighbourhood planning covers much more than the production of a neighbourhood development plan. 

Communities should choose carefully when deciding how to spend time and resources.

To help communities decide on how to best get involved in planning the CPRE and the Localism Network have produced a guide called Planning and Localism: Choices and Choosing.

Neighbourhood plans cannot promote less development than the local plan, nor can they promote development that conflicts with it. 

Neighbourhood plans can be used to promote more development than is set out in the local plan, or to provide more detail specific to a local area.   

The county council doesn't have any direct statutory responsibilities for the preparation of neighbourhood plans.

We produce waste and minerals plans which are part of the development plan.

We are also the Highways Authority, responsible for the development of transportation policy, the implementation of improvement schemes and maintenance of the non-motorway road system.