Haddenham votes ‘yes’ for Neighbourhood Plan

The Haddenham community has voted very decisively in its local referendum on Thursday, July 16, when 86% of those voting said YES to the village’s Neighbourhood Plan.

This means that, subject to final approval by a Government inspector, AVDC will need to reference Haddenham’s Neighbourhood Plan when it considers planning applications in and close to the village in the coming years.

The referendum was the culmination of a great deal of effort over the last two years to consult with local residents through public meetings, workshops and smaller scale group discussions, to build a consensus view of how Haddenham should develop over the next 18 years.

The final Neighbourhood Plan was compiled by a team led by Andy Fell on behalf of Haddenham Parish Council, with assistance from the Village Society and other residents.

Once the Plan had been approved by an independent inspector and AVDC, and offered up to Haddenham residents in the referendum, the Parish Council had to remain impartial as a corporate body.

The ‘YES Campaign’ was therefore driven by local residents, led by Keith Milmer, in the face of determined efforts by land development company Lightwood Strategic, which sought directly to persuade the Haddenham community to vote NO.

Keith said: “after so much effort from Andy Fell and the NP team to consult with residents and then spend many hundreds of hours compiling the Plan, it was depressing to see an external development company with major financial interests in the outcome of the referendum seeking to influence what should have been a very local decision making process.”

He continued: “A small but significant group of residents also campaigned for a NO vote, which is perfectly reasonable in a democratic process of course. The most important issued for me was ensuring that debate among the local community remained focused on the planning issues and not allowed to deteriorate into personal attacks, simply because individuals held differing views. Some campaign literature sought to raise question marks about the integrity of the NP team, and this was highly undesirable.”

“Haddenham is now a very large village but it maintains a close-knit community spirit. So it was very important that robust debate did not damage relationships going forward. Now that the referendum is behind us, I hope sincerely that this has been achieved.”

The figures are:
Turnout was 1989 out of 3,877 (51.3%)
YES vote: 1712 (86.1%)
NO vote: 273 (13.7%)
There were four spoiled ballot papers.

Photograph:
Keith Milmer, leader of the successful ‘Yes Campaign’

SOURCE: Contributed by Haddenham.net