Yapton Neighbourhood Plan is to be considered for adoption by Arun District Council

At Arun’s full council meeting on Wednesday, November 8, members are to debate the adoption of the Yapton Neighbourhood Development Plan 2011-2031 into the council’s existing planning policy.

After a resident referendum held on September 12 this year, showed around 91 per cent support for the ‘making’ of a Yapton Neighbourhood Plan by the council, will now ‘make’ the it by adopting the existing parish council 2011-2031 plan into its Development Plan for Arun.

The referendum saw 530 respondents, a 12.35 per cent turnout of registered voters, requiring a threshold of 50 per cent in favour of adoption for it to be seen by the full council.

This was under the Town and Country Planning Act 1990, and without an existing plan, would have required ADC to draft a neighbourhood plan for consideration from scratch.

If adopted, ADC’s planning committee would have to give the neighbourhood plan as much weight as other district council planning policy when determining planning applications in Yapton.

At previous planning meetings, Yapton Parish councillors, residents and Arun District councillors have lamented ‘overdevelopment’ in the village, with Martin Lury (LDem, Bersted) commenting it should be called ‘Yap-town’ due to its growth.

The Yapton Neighbourhood Development Plan will cover the Yapton Parish Council boundaries as it does currently.

An application for 170 homes on land off Bilsham Road in Yapton is to come before ADC’s planning committee on Wednesday, November 15, which Yapton Parish Council’s four page objection hopes to get refused, quoting a departure from the neighbourhood plan.