OFFICER DECISION BRIEFING NOTE - YORK MINSTER PRECINCT NEIGHBOURHOOD PLAN – FORUM REDESIGNATION

Summary

1. The York Minster Precinct Neighbourhood Plan Forum was designated on 14^th March 2019. A Forum designation lasts for 5 years, therefore the Forum has applied to the Council to be formally redesignated, in accordance with The Town and Country Planning Act 1990, The Localism Act 2011 and the Neighbourhood Planning (General) Regulations 2012 (as amended). Redesignation will enable the Forum to implement the York Minster Precinct Neighbourhood Plan, which was adopted by the Council on 16^th June 2022, covering the York Minster Precinct Neighbourhood Area.

2. The Council published the Forum Redesignation application and supporting documentation on Wednesday 4^th December 2024 and the consultation ran until Wednesday 29^th January 2025, covering 8 weeks (to allow extra time due to the Christmas holidays).

3. The application must be determined within 13 weeks of its publication by the Council, which in this case, is by 5^th March 2025.

Background

4. The Localism Act 2011 allows community groups to apply to the Council to be designated as a neighbourhood forum. Designation as neighbourhood forum allows a qualifying group to develop land-use proposals for a specified area, which can include the preparation of a statutory neighbourhood development plan for that specified area. Their designation must be renewed every 5 years if an existing forum is to continue to exercise these powers for their specified area.

York Minster Precinct Neighbourhood Plan Forum

5. The York Minster Precinct Neighbourhood Plan Forum was designated on 14^th March 2019. A Forum designation lasts for 5 years, therefore the Forum has applied to the Council to be formally redesignated, in accordance with The Town and Country Planning Act 1990, The Localism Act 2011 and the Neighbourhood Planning (General) Regulations 2012 (as amended). Redesignation of the Forum will allow the implementation of proposals in the York Minster Precinct Neighbourhood Plan, which was adopted on 16^th June 2022. The neighbourhood plan and associated documents can be viewed on the Council’s website at:

https://www.york.gov.uk/MinsterPlan

6. Applications to be designated as a neighbourhood forum must include:

· the name of the proposed forum;

· a copy of the written constitution of the proposed forum;

· the name of the neighbourhood area to which the application relates;

· a map which identifies the area;

· the contact details of at least one member of the of the proposed neighbourhood forum to be made public; and

· a statement which explains how the proposed forum will meet the prescribed conditions of the Act, namely that:

1. the forum is established for the express purpose of promoting or improving the social economic and environmental wellbeing of an area that consists of or includes the neighbourhood area concerned; and

2. the membership of the forum is open to:

· individuals who live in the neighbourhood area concerned;

· individuals who work in the neighbourhood area concerned; and

· individuals who are elected members for an area that falls within the neighbourhood area concerned; and

3. the membership of the forum incudes a minimum of 21 individuals, each of whom:

· lives in the area concerned;

· works in the area concerned; or

· are elected members of any part of the area concerned; and

4. the forum has a written constitution.

Application documents

7. The application documents were published for public consultation on Wednesday 4^th December 2024, until Wednesday 29^th January 2025, covering 8 weeks (to allow extra time due to the Christmas holidays). The application must be determined within 13 weeks of its publication by the Council, which in this case, is by 5^th March 2025. The Neighbourhood Forum Application, updated Constitution and the Precinct Map accompany this Briefing Note.

8. The primary purpose of the neighbourhood forum when it was first set up was to oversee the development and adoption of the York Minster Precinct Neighbourhood Plan. This was adopted on 16^th June 2022, at which point, the point of the Forum’s attention turned to overseeing its implementation. The Forum receives an annual report on progress from the Director of Works & Precinct. The table below outlines the key projects under the Neighbourhood Plan and their current status:

Project Areas	Description	Stage	Comment
1) Minster Yard and College Green
College Green	Refurbished green space	Complete	Dedicated by the Dean of York on 31^st March 2023
Refectory and Minster Gardens	Restaurant and new public open space	Complete	Opened by HM King Charles II following Maundy Thursday service on 6^th April 2023
Visitor Experience Team Hub, Ticket and Box Office, South Transept Vestibules	Facilities for Visitor Experience team and visitors	Pipeline	To take forward in 2025/2026
2) West Front and Queen Elizabeth Square	New public square for civil and ceremonial use	Phase 1 complete Phase 2 Pre-application	Statue of the late QEII was unveiled by HM King in November 2022 Awaiting details of QEII Memorial Fund
3) Learning and gardens	Museum & Learning Centre	Pre-application	Live pre-application with City of York Council
4) Own use properties
Refurbishment of 4 Deangate and creation of new masons workshop	Centre of Excellence (Technology Hub and Heritage Quad)	Construction	Practical Completion due August 2024
Church House	Residential use	Construction	Completed: awaiting building control
St Williams College	Chapter of York Minster offices	Planning secured	RIBA (begin 2025), Q2
Net Zero agenda	Decarbonising the estate	Various	175,000KWH of power to be generated on site from renewables by Q4 2024

The project areas listed in red in the above table are still at the planning stage. Although the Forum does not need to be re-designated to monitor the implementation of the Neighbourhood Plan, its re-designation would be required to enable the update of the Neighbourhood Plan if whilst monitoring the Plan, certain policies are not having the desired effect. Any update of policies would require the Neighbourhood Plan to be remade. The purpose of the Neighbourhood Plan is to enable the voice of those who lived and worked in the Minster Precinct to be heard so that decisions are made to the benefit of everyone.

9. A number of Community Actions are listed in the Neighbourhood Plan and are ongoing. These include ‘Funding’ (page 7), ‘Eco Gold Church’ (page 46) and ‘Access & Parking’ (page 76).

10. The application for re-designation also reflects the importance of this area of the City and the national status of the Neighbourhood Plan as the first of its kind in the country, with the neighbourhood Plan being a flagship document. The Neighbourhood Plan has generated interest both nationally and internationally. In 2023, the Neighbourhood Plan won best plan at the RTPI Awards for Planning Excellence Yorkshire and was winner of the European network Future for Religious Heritage , Religious Heritage Innovator of the Year Award. It was also showcased at the recent Retrofit Show 2024 Exhibition, by the Building Centre, London.

11. Given the above recognition, it is important that the Forum continues to ensure that it delivers what it set out to do. One of the current projects, the Centre of Excellence, has environmental sustainability at its heart, including solar panels, and rainwater harvesting.

Results of the Consultation

12. A total of 1 comment has been received during the public consultation period, which ran from Wednesday 4^th December 2024 until Wednesday 29^th January 2025. This is summarised in Table 1 below:

Ref Code

Respondent

Comments

Cllr J. Rose

The Minster neighbourhood plan work to date has seemed to be good to me and been positively received as far as I am aware, so I am not submitting any negative comments about the application merits and have no objections for the forum or plan continuation, so this isn’t really a consultation response.

However I just wanted to pass through the comment that the map attached to the consultation was extremely low resolution, poorly coloured, particularly including the washed out colours for residential agent-managed areas and white for other work, which makes it impossible even when held up against another map and with very good knowledge of the area to actually tell what is properly included and what isn’t, and it would be great in the future if the equivalent map(s) are crystal clear. For those who have a generalised knowledge and no parallel map, I don’t know if they’d be able to tell if any properties on Gillygate, Lord Mayors Walk, and Moatside Court are included or just the walls and wallbanks. I appreciate that the image was from 2018 and is now ‘in situ’ but that surely makes it easier to have a clearer image, and in an area I know less well than this I’d have really struggled to understand it, so just wanted to highlight it!

Additionally the lack of ability to respond online makes this process of responding quite awkward and will reduce the number of responses, and it’s unclear from the text on the page whether it’s just the forum as an entity that’s being reviewed or the plan boundaries etc, so just wanted to call those out too. Just wanted to flag as someone who’s broadly aware of the processes that I’m not sure it’s clear for the average resident.

Table 1: Consultation Responses

Conclusion of Consultation

13. The application documents submitted by York Minster Precinct Neighbourhood Forum comply with the relevant statutory requirements and the Council has published them for consultation. Only 1 objection has been submitted during the consultation period to the re-designation of the forum or its associated boundary. This related more specifically to the process of the consultation and the mapping, rather than the content of the Forum re-designation application. It is therefore proposed that the Forum is formally re-designated as the statutory neighbourhood forum for the York Minster Precinct Neighbourhood Plan area.

Recommendations:

· To approve the application redesignation of the York Minster Precinct Neighbourhood Plan Forum, as the statutory neighbourhood plan forum for the York Minster Precinct Neighbourhood Plan area, subject to the proposed constitution.

· To approve the publication of the decision to redesignate the Forum, in accordance with Regulation 7 and Regulation 10 of the Neighbourhood Planning (General) Regulations 2012, as amended.