Cookham Neighbourhood Plan – The CNP

Who pays for it all?

Remember, to start with, that all the Parish Councillors give their time and effort absolutely for nothing. Parish Councillors receive no allowances or pay of any kind. This is, of course, also true of those representing the local groups.

Governments are keen on devolving what they can right down to Parish level. So successive Governments have provided grants to help pay for the work involved. The Parish Council has received well over half the fees in grants. These also include a special ‘Covid-19’ grant given to those who did not allow the virus to deter them from or delay this work.

Remember, though, that if the CNP is adopted, the Parish’s share of the Community Infrastructure Levy will go up by two thirds. This work should more than pay for itself.

How are residents consulted?

The whole process is completely transparent. There has always been a section of the Parish Council’s website (now www.cookham-pc.gov.uk; previously www.cookhamparishcouncil.org.uk) which holds all the material documents, available for access at any time. All meetings of the WP have always been open to everyone.

During the drafting phase, the WP met about 4 – 6 weekly. Virtually the first thing it did, after considering Troy’s first document and asking for a formal Area Analysis, was to work out how to begin consultation. It keeps this under continual review.

If there had been no Covid-19, there would probably have been some kind of grand launch with a meeting and display which everyone could visit. In the circumstances the WP and Parish Council had to decide on a different approach.

So they agreed a list of about 25 – 30 major stakeholders within Cookham. These include the Churches, the schools, various large landowners and institutions like the Odney Club, along with community groups of all kinds including but not limited to Cookham Active Transport through Elizabeth House to Cookham Medical Centre and Pinder Hall. (The full list is in the papers on the website.) The list also included national organisations such as the National Trust. The WP has reached out to all of them to invite them to tell it what they thought important for inclusion in the CNP.

Responses were of all types. Some didn’t respond at all. Some said that they preferred not to comment on this sort of thing. Others preferred to wait until there was a document on which to comment. Some had very specific concerns. Others (such as Copas Farms and the Copas Partnership) came back with detailed suggestions for the whole Parish.

The WP has woven these into its thinking process. Then it consulted every resident of Cookham through leaflets to every door. At every stage of consultation there have been banners across the Parish. There has also been a half-page notice in the Parish Magazine, which also comes through every door in the Parish, monthly since the whole process started, with a QR code and a web page address to link through to the relevant pages of the website. Besides all this, stands have been set up at community events, councillors have addressed meetings, and so on.

There have been three major stages of consultation. First was a general consultation on what people wanted in principle. Secondly, there was a consultation on whether the WP had correctly understood the responses to the first. Fortunately, the responses to the second were overwhelmingly positive. Most recently, we have held what is called a Regulation 14 consultation on the first draft of the Plan.

The Regulation 14 Consultation fortunately also received a hugely positive response. Various changes have nevertheless been made in response to it. The WP approved the final version without a single dissenting vote from everyone round the table.
On 5 November 2024, the Parish Council signed off it finally.