Cookham Neighbourhood Plan – Q & A

Q & A - Click on each title to find out more...

• Why is a Neighbourhood Plan being prepared?

  he purpose of the Cookham Neighbourhood Plan is to help improve the quality of life and environment for the community as a whole. The Neighbourhood Plan will be set in the context of the Local Plan adopted by the Local Planning Authority (“LPA”) the Royal Borough of Windsor and Maidenhead (“RBWM”).

  The Adopted Borough Local Plan 2013 – 33 set housing targets (under the former Conservative Government’s targets) for new development in the royal Borough and hence Cookham and has specifically allocated land for this in Cookham Rise. The new Government, with its new national targets and allocations to LPAs, and the Royal Borough will continue to be basically responsible for that.

  Sadly, the actual applications for the developments on Lower Mount Farm/Cannondown Road (at 200 homes, much the biggest) and Strande Park were approved by RBWM on 19.12.24. The Cookham Neighbourhood Plan, not having been agreed by that date, cannot affect them. It will however seek to influence the form and quality of all further new development, so that this better reflects local character, qualities and wishes.

  Importantly, because the Cookham Neighbourhood Plan will be produced with extensive input from the local community, it will reflect local issues, concerns and aspirations. It will have very real potential to influence change for the better – more so than any other documents prepared before.

• Can the Cookham Neighbourhood Plan be used to stop development?

  No. Government policy does not allow this. The Neighbourhood Plan has to work on the basis of the amount of new development set by the Government for the LPA, RBWM, and by RBWM for Cookham. Since the Local Plan does not now provide a 5 year housing supply there is also the possibility that developers and land owners may suggest other sites and developments around Cookham which are not in that Local Plan.

  What the Cookham Neighbourhood Plan can be used for is to help reject anything more than is in the Local Plan. It can and will also try to make sure that any future development in Cookham reflects the characteristics and qualities of the area that we value and enjoy, and brings as many benefits as possible to Cookham.

• Aren’t there already policies for Cookham in the Windsor & Maidenhead Local Plan?

  There are. The Neighbourhood Plan is not legally allowed to diverge from the ‘strategic’ policies in the Local Plan. These, for example, identify land for development in Cookham Rise and set Green Belt policies. Also, the National Planning Policy Framework is binding and cannot be altered by a Neighbourhood Plan.

  This Neighbourhood Plan does, though, provide scope to influence the shape of future growth, as well as establishing policies for Cookham as a whole, providing more locally based and appropriate policies than set out in the Windsor & Maidenhead Local Plan. This can cover aspects such as bio-diversity, important views, the natural setting, access and movement.

• We already have a Village Design Statement. Why do we need a Neighbourhood Plan?

  The Village Design Statement is not a formal ‘planning document’. Officially it is only ‘guidance’ to the planners. It is also mainly about style rather than what can be built and where. This means that the planners can give it little weight when making serious decisions about Cookham.

  A Neighbourhood Plan is a formal ‘planning document’. This means that RBWM’s planners must follow it when planning decisions are made.

• Why don’t we have a Neighbourhood Plan already?

  Cookham has history went it comes to Parish planning. The first attempt at a Cookham Plan was made some fifteen years ago. It was not successful.

  What was successful was the following effort to create the Village Design Statement, which will, obviously and rightly, closely inform the CNP. (Indeed, Dr Shez Courtenay-Smith, who chaired the Village Design Statement Working Group, has throughout the development of the Cookham Neighbourhood Plan sat with the Councillors and other local groups who helped write it.)

  The Parish Council then waited to see how the Borough Local Plan process would work out. After seeing the long delays to that, it began serious work on the Neighbourhood Plan in late 2019. There were delays due to Covid-19 and then the 2023 local elections but work continued throughout.

• How will infrastructure improvements be paid for?

  Developers of schemes over a certain size are required to pay a Community Infrastructure Levy to the Royal Borough of Windsor & Maidenhead. Currently, on developments that take place in Cookham, 15% of the monies – but capped per home – come back to the Parish Council. If and when our Neighbourhood Plan is made this increases to 25%, without any cap per home.

  This will help pay for improvements to things such as green spaces and play facilities, walking and cycling routes, and improved community facilities of all kinds. The Neighbourhood Plan includes an Appendix with a set of projects that the Parish Council will discuss.

• Who is preparing the Neighbourhood Plan?

  The Neighbourhood Plan is led by a Working Party set up by the Parish Council comprising Parish Councillors along with permanent consultees from important local groups the Cookham Society, WildCookham, Cookham’s Footprint and Save Cookham, as well as Dr Shez Courtenay-Smith, the Chairman of the group that wrote the Village Design Statement.

  As work on the Neighbourhood Plan has progressed the Working Party has reached out to and engaged with local residents through consultations, as well as to business, local landowners and organisations of all kinds. The Parish Council also ran the ‘Regulation 14’ final consultation.

  The group has achieved a true consensus. There was not a single vote in the whole Working Party group or the Council itself against the draft Neighbourhood Plan which has been sent to the Royal Borough for its ‘stages’ in the creation process.

• Will Windsor and Maidenhead have any say in the Cookham Neighbourhood Plan – or help us?

  The Royal Borough has already drafted the Borough Local Plan, within which the Cookham Neighbourhood Plan must ‘fit’. The Royal Borough is also responsible for the last round of consultation on the Neighbourhood Plan (so-called ‘Regulation 16’ consultation) starting on 6 January and ending on 17 February 2025.

  It then organises Examination by a planning expert chosen by it after consultation with the Parish Council. The Examiner’s job is to make sure that the Neighbourhood Plan is ‘sound’: that is, that it complies with the law and all existing planning policies which bind it.

  Finally, the Royal Borough is responsible for organising the referendum in the Parish which decides whether or not to adopt the Neighbourhood Plan.

• The Parish Council are amateurs. How can they create a Plan that works?

  The Parish Council has engaged specialist consultants, Troy Planning + Design. They have done and are doing the technical work with the Working Party to make sure that the Plan is what the Parish wants as well as sound, legal and appropriate. They are paid for significantly by grants which the Parish Council has obtained from Locality, a body funded by the Government specially for this purpose. A further consultant group, AECOM, are responsible for drafting the design guidelines of the Neighbourhood Plan. They are wholly funded by the Government.

• What is the referendum?

  Everyone who is eligible to vote in Cookham will have the chance to say whether they think the Neighbourhood Plan should be used to begin shaping future change and determining planning applications.

  If more than 50% of the votes cast agree with the Neighbourhood Plan, then it will become part of formal planning policy for Cookham.