Now is the time to have a vision of Haverhill's future
Tuesday, 28th February 2012.
Friday sees the start of consultation on the most wholesale vision for the future of Haverhill for decades.
Vision 2031 is the first attempt by planners to put into words the aspirations put forward by townspeople about a year ago when the project was launched.
It is part of the new form of local plan for the town to cover the next 20 years up to 2031, but it ranges much more widely than previous local plans, and takes in such diverse subjects as education, employment, transport, environment and housing.
Chris Rand, of St Edmundsbury Borough Council's department, said: "It covers how we accommodayte chanmge and growth and what needs protecting.
"We launched this with a public consultation last year which evoked a wide and varied response. This is our first stab at putting a document together and now we are asking: 'Have we got it right? Did we hear you correctly? If not, where have we gone wrong?'"
Cllr Anne Gower, the borough's portfolio holder for Haverhill, admitted there had been a lot of public consultation in Haverhill recently, on all sorts of subjects.
"I am copncerned we seem to be suffering from death by conultation at the moment, but this really is the big one," she said.
"It's not just about planning, but about what makes a community a unique, valuable, viable place to be.
"I want everyone with an interest in the town to shape the quality of life here for the future. If we get it right this time it could make such a difference over the years ahead.
"We need everyone's experience, vision, hopes and dreams to play a part."
The consultation launches at an exhibition at the Arts Centre on Friday, while the documentation goes live online on the council's website from Thursday.
Similar consultations on Bury St Edmunds and the rural part of the borough will be taking place at the same time.
The results will be incorporated in a second draft later in the year which will also go out to public consultation before the document is submitted to the Secretary of State for examination in public next year, after which it would hopefully be adopted as policy later in 2013 and will largely govern what can and cannot be done here from then until 2031.
All three will run until April 30
Vision 2031 is the first attempt by planners to put into words the aspirations put forward by townspeople about a year ago when the project was launched.
It is part of the new form of local plan for the town to cover the next 20 years up to 2031, but it ranges much more widely than previous local plans, and takes in such diverse subjects as education, employment, transport, environment and housing.
Chris Rand, of St Edmundsbury Borough Council's department, said: "It covers how we accommodayte chanmge and growth and what needs protecting.
"We launched this with a public consultation last year which evoked a wide and varied response. This is our first stab at putting a document together and now we are asking: 'Have we got it right? Did we hear you correctly? If not, where have we gone wrong?'"
Cllr Anne Gower, the borough's portfolio holder for Haverhill, admitted there had been a lot of public consultation in Haverhill recently, on all sorts of subjects.
"I am copncerned we seem to be suffering from death by conultation at the moment, but this really is the big one," she said.
"It's not just about planning, but about what makes a community a unique, valuable, viable place to be.
"I want everyone with an interest in the town to shape the quality of life here for the future. If we get it right this time it could make such a difference over the years ahead.
"We need everyone's experience, vision, hopes and dreams to play a part."
The consultation launches at an exhibition at the Arts Centre on Friday, while the documentation goes live online on the council's website from Thursday.
Similar consultations on Bury St Edmunds and the rural part of the borough will be taking place at the same time.
The results will be incorporated in a second draft later in the year which will also go out to public consultation before the document is submitted to the Secretary of State for examination in public next year, after which it would hopefully be adopted as policy later in 2013 and will largely govern what can and cannot be done here from then until 2031.
All three will run until April 30
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