Standish Neighbourhood Plan – The Final Plan

The people of Standish overwhelmingly agreed to adopt Standish Neighbourhood Plan after 94.5% of voters said Yes to it in a referendum held on Thursday, July 18.

The turnout was 30.4% with 3,515 people voting.

Earlier in 2019, a Planning Examiner concluded her review of the Plan.

Her amendments were agreed by Standish Voice and Wigan Council and the Plan was voted on in a referendum of the whole village, held along local election lines.

The question was: “Do you want Wigan Council to use the Standish Neighbourhood Plan to help it decide planning applications in the Standish Neighbourhood Area?”

In December, 2018, Wigan Council conducted the second round of statutory consultation on Standish Neighbourhood Plan. You can read the Final Plan here.

You can also read all the documentation associated with it and the submissions on it on the Council’s dedicated web pages. You can access this by clicking on the link here.

Standish Neighbourhood Plan is a comprehensive document designed to influence the village’s development until 2030. If it is adopted at referendum it will give our community a real say in changes across Standish.

This is the first non-business Neighbourhood Plan in the whole of Greater Manchester to reach this stage and Standish Voice would like to thank the community for its help in achieving this.

In autumn, 2017, Standish Voice conducted a six-week consultation on the original draft plan – called Regulation 14 consultation – and 210 responses were received. Standish Voice would like to thank all those who responded. 

All these submissions, observations and suggestions from Wigan Council and others were considered ahead of producing the Final Draft Plan. The original draft plan was changed after this consultation to create the Final Draft Plan.

This Final Draft Plan was supported by a vote of members of Standish Voice at an EGM in May, 2018.

Further suggestions on wording and organisation of policies were given after an independent Examination ‘Health Check’, primarily carried out to see if the Final Draft Plan complied with national planning policy basic conditions. Further changes linked to these suggestions were carried out on the Final Draft Plan and its Evidence Base and appendices ahead of the next stage of consultation.

In late October, 2018, the Final Draft Plan was submitted to Wigan Council for the next stage of the Neighbourhood Planning process. After all the necessary documentation was gathered, the Final Draft Plan was published for Wigan Council’s own Regulation 16 consultation on November 7. This was carried out for six weeks until December 19.

The Plan, its documentation and the consultation submissions has been studied by a Planning Examiner who recommended some changes. You can read her final report here.

If it is passed at a referendum, it will be adopted by Wigan Council. Neighbourhood Plans have legal weight and must be taken into consideration when bodies such as Wigan Council make planning decisions. We hope some of the proposals will also be used when Wigan Council decides how to spend developer and government funds which are expected to come to Standish due to the large number of homes that are being built across the village.

The Planning Examiner, Rosemary Kidd, made these remarks in her report on the plan: “The Plan has been prepared by the Neighbourhood Forum, Standish Voice. They are to be congratulated on the work they have undertaken in consulting the community of this large area and drawing up a plan to address the issues that have been identified particularly to ensure that the village centre and community facilities are enhanced and improved to meet the needs of this growing population.

“The Plan also seeks to ensure that the housing needs of the population are addressed especially for the ageing population and that provision is made for affordable homes.”

To use an interactive tool which explains the highlights of the plan, click here

Highlights of the draft plan include policies to:

Influence the amount of new housing

Ensure any new housing meets the needs of Standish and its people

Make the village centre more attractive and vibrant

Control the number of hot food takeaways in the village centre

Protect valuable green spaces that could be under threat of development in the future

Create better sporting and leisure factilities in a park on The Rec in the village centre

Improve existing recreation areas, parkland and open space

Support more car parking in the village centre

Create and improve cycle paths and footpaths

Protect our historic pubs

Create new green/wildlife corridors

You can read the Final Plan for referendum here.

You can read the Final Draft Plan before the Planning Examiner’s modifications here

As part of the Neighbourhood Planning process, Standish Voice consulted widely with local people at all stages ahead of the Final Draft Plan’s preparation.

Standish Voice has compiled a Consultation Statement setting out all the consultation undertaken in the process of creating the Neighbourhood Plan and the findings. This includes all the submissions to the consultation on the original draft plan and a table showing Standish Voice’s responses to the issues raised in those submissions.

You can read the Consultation Statement here

Standish Voice has prepared a comprehensive Evidence Base, which includes maps and appendices, linked to the policies in the Neighbourhood Plan. You can read the Evidence Base here. You can also read its appendices. Appendix A and B can be read here. The other appendices can be read here.

You can read how the Final Draft Plan complies with basic planning conditions here.

Also, Standish Voice commissioned externally prepared reports – written by national consultancy Aecom – to help in the formulation of the original draft plan. These are in the Evidence Base’s Appendix B but you can also read these reports below:

• Technical Facilitation – Housing Evidence And Policy was a study to find the reasons behind the high housing growth in Standish. Read the report here.
• Housing Needs Assessment was a study into what housing is needed in Standish and if it is being delivered by house builders. Read the report here.
• Standish Village Masterplan was a report that showed how Aecom believes Standish village centre could be improved. We have used some of the ideas within the Masterplan to create policies in the draft Neighbourhood Plan but have discounted others. The Masterplan is only a starting point in how to make the centre of Standish better. Read the report here.

You can read the original draft plan, which was was consulted upon for Regulation 14 consultation, here.

You can read the updated draft plan, which was changed after the Regulation 14 consultation here but before the Health Check changes here.

You can read how policy numbering has changed between the original draft plan and the final draft plan here.

If you have any questions about Standish Neighbourhood Plan or its associated documents, please email standishneighbourhoodforum@gmail.com