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In 2017 the government published a white paper, offering huge incentives to local councils to get building more houses. The local authorities were instructed to be lenient on current planning lines, use all types of land and put up as many houses as possible. For every house that goes up the local council receives government funding under the 'affordable housing scheme'. As a result of this in late 2017 and early 2018 a nationwide spate of planning applications were passed in places that it was previously unthinkable to build on. Many, many people have profited from this scheme but at the expense of expansion. Councils across the UK have taken advantage of out of date local plans and extended the planning boundaries previously set in place. While some might argue to the opposite, Hurworth has actually been very lucky in this mass UK housing expansion as only 200 houses have been applied for so far, while many surrounding areas such as Middleton St. George, Heighington, Yarm and Newton Aycliffe have seen the passing of planning applications for thousands of extra houses. in early 2017 the Parish council set up a committee to work on the new neighbourhood plan, this will, when complete be added to the borough councils local plan and will essentially set the planning lines for Hurworth for the next 10 years. Updates on the plan are posted in the minutes of each monthly meeting. The Parish councillors working with the committee are Cllr. Nic Prior, Cllr. Graham Wylie and Cllr. Richard Lawley   

Housing White Paper - Fixing our broken housing market

Housing White Paper - Fixing our broken housing market

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What is a neighbourhood plan? - Find out everything about it on the government's website by clicking this link - www.gov.uk

This document is an important part of the Neighbourhood Plan for Hurworth that is
being produced on behalf of the Hurworth Parish Council to document the villages
wishes and needs for the next 20 years.
The Neighbourhood Plan is looking at many aspects of the villages and their
surroundings within the Parish of Hurworth in relation to Housing, Amenities, Green
Spaces, Transport, Infrastructure and other aspects.
One of the most important aspects of this report is the views of residents of the
Parish. This questionnaire was deemed the best way to ascertain those views by
giving all residents of the Parish a chance to have their say.
Over 400 Questionnaires were returned and the results have been analysed
professionally, together with the extra written views from those who wished to add them.


This summary, which has been prepared very kindly by Hurworth resident Peter Commane,

is the distillation of those responses in a form that we can all understand.
It has been published in advance of the Neighbourhood Plan because that has some
way to go before a draught document can be produced and we wanted the

Parish to see the results of their hard work in completing the questionnaires

while it was still fresh in people’s minds.
I would like to thank all the people who contributed, voluntarily, so much of their own
time to produce, distribute, collate and analyse all the results from this
Questionnaire. It has been a massive project and a few people have spent many
hours ensuring it went according to plan.
It shows that many people really care passionately about the villages of Hurworth
and Hurworth Place and the surrounding Parish and want a say in its future development.
This will be used in conjunction with other sources to produce a draught
Neighbourhood Plan for presentation to Darlington Borough Council and the Parish in due course.

 

Our draft has been forwarded to Darlington Borough Council for discussion, and we are awaiting their feedback, following the main Council Elections.


Thank you to everyone who has been involved.

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