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City Development
City of York Council West Offices Station Rise York |
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The Parish Clerk, Heslington Parish Council, The Byre, Field House Farm, Thornton–le-Clay, York, YO60 7QA
Sent via email only: heslingtonpcnplan@outlook.com
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Our Ref:
Date 4/6/26 |
Dear sir / madam,
Heslington Neighbourhood Plan Regulation 14 Consultation – response from City of York Council:
Thank you for inviting the City of York Council to comment on the Regulation 14 consultation version of the Heslington Neighbourhood Plan. We have attached our detailed comments on the policies in the attached schedule of comments.
Overall, we feel that the Regulation 14 Consultation document is a well written and concise document and clearly a lot of work and effort has been put into it by the Parish Council, residents, other interested parties and your commissioned planning professionals. The current Regulation
14 document clearly takes on board many of the recommendations of the previous Neighbourhood Plan Examiner, following the previous Heslington Neighbourhood Plan Examination, held between January 2020 and March 2021. However, since the Neighbourhood Plan Examiner submitted his report in March 2021, a number of significant changes have occurred at local and national level, which need to be taken into account in the current Regulation 14 document, most notably the adoption of the City of York Local Plan, in February 2025 (following the Examination into the Local Plan, the latter stages of which took place following the publication of the Neighbourhood Plan report in March 2021) and the publication of a revised NPPF. It is very important that the Neighbourhood Plan reflects the adopted Local Plan and revised NPPF, therefore we feel that some of the policies will need updating to reflect this, as set out in the attached Schedule of Comments.
Our main areas of concern include the following issues:
· The policies in the Neighbourhood Plan need to be positively worded throughout the document;
· Some concerns regarding the general conformity with Local Plan policies and repetition of existing Local Plan policies & national guidance (NPPF);
· As of 25th March 2026, Sections 98 & 99 of the Levelling Up and Regeneration Act 2023 took effect. The new regulations introduce a requirement for neighbourhood plans to contribute to the mitigation and adaptation to climate change. The Act also requires neighbourhood plans to take account of any local nature recovery strategies (LNRS) which relate to the neighbourhood area.
It should also be noted that in accordance with Annex A (Implementation) of the draft revised NPPF (December 2025), the Neighbourhood Plan would need to be submitted to the local authority (for Submission Consultation and Examination) before the publication of the final version of the latest NPPF, to be considered in accordance with the existing 2024 NPPF. If it is submitted after publication of the final version of the latest NPPF, it would need to be in accordance with that version of the NPPF. At the moment, the Government has not given any clear indication of when it will be published, but we anticipate that it will be sometime this summer.
The City of York Council is committed to supporting Heslington Parish Council to progressing the Heslington Neighbourhood Plan to adoption, so the Neighbourhood Plan can become part of the Development Plan for York and be used as a material consideration in the determination of planning applications in the Heslington Parish. We would therefore like to reiterate our offer to arrange a meeting to discuss our comments on the current Regulation 14 Consultation document and how the Neighbourhood Plan can be progressed through the latter stages to adoption in the most appropriate and expedient way.
Kind regards
Alison Cooke
Alison Cooke
Head of Strategic Planning Policy