The Forum held a meeting yesterday evening to discuss the proposals for Whitburn Lodge.

The Whitburn Lodge owners had approached the Forum with their plans to build houses on the Lodge and the car park (but not the horses field). We held the meeting with residents to gather views on this proposal.

A summary of comments made by residents:
- Residents find the current state of the Lodge unacceptable
- Support for maintaining access to the coastal park from Mill Lane
- Support for affordable housing, as long as it meets the need of Whitburn residents
- Questions about whether it would be possible to keep Hope House
- Concerns about impacts on wildlife, schools, facilities and traffic
- Support for having a community centre
- Concerns about loss of access to the stables 
- Concerns about setting a precedent for development on Green Belt
- Support for preserving the gate posts and mining plaques as an entrance to the site

If you would like to leave any additional comments, please fill in the form below.

The Forum has now sent their comments to the draft Local Plan. You can read the report here.

The comments cover all areas of the Local Plan. It sets out our objections to the way housing need has been calculated, and shows that there are errors in the Sustainability Assessment and the way sites have been selected for development. It also goes into detail on impacts on nature, sewage, traffic, air quality and local facilities.

If you have any questions, please do get in touch.

Venue: Barnes Institute
Date: Wednesday 17th August 7.30PM

The owners of the Whitburn Lodge have approached the Whitburn Forum with a proposal to develop the site. 
We would like to hear the views of the residents.
There will be a short presentation, followed by questions and the opportunity to view the plans

We are happy to announce that the referendum result is that 92% of voters were in favour of adopting the neighbourhood plan. That means that we now have a Whitburn neighbourhood Plan and residents will be able to influence future development in the village.

We want to thank everyone who voted yesterday. The turnout was 28.4%.

You can read the declaration of the result here.

Our work is not done though.  We are now going to focus on our objections to the Local Plan. More news to follow on this.

Some good news: the council’s cabinet has agreed that the Whitburn Neighbourhood Plan should go to referendum. This means that all Whitburn residents will be invited to have their say on the Plan. If the majority votes ‘yes’, the plan will be adopted and Whitburn will have its own planning rules that all developers will need to follow.

We will be providing more information to residents about the referendum and the Whitburn Neighbourhood Plan, so that everyone can have an informed vote.

In the meantime, write down down the referendum date in your agenda: 4 August!

The Forum is happy to announce that the Plan has gone through examination successfully. The examiner has recommended that depending on some changes to the Plan, they are happy that the Plan is sound and meets all the required legal and policy tests. The examiner also congratulated the Forum on how they have carried out community consultation, even during COVID times.

The next step is that the council will make the recommended changes to the Plan, which the Forum will check. The Plan then goes for approval to the cabinet committee, and if all goes well, it will then go to a local referendum. The referendum will be held in the village and will give residents the opportunity to vote on the Plan. If they approve the plan for adoption, we will finally be able to influence development in the village. More info on the referendum to follow once we have confirmation.

The Whitburn Neighbourhood Plan has been made by and for residents. The aim is for the Plan to be adopted, so that future planning applications will have to follow the rules within the Plan. This means that the Plan will have to go through a long process before it can be adopted.

Firstly, residents and organisations will have the chance to make comments - this is the consultation that the council is running on the Plan now. Secondly, the Plan will need to be examined by an independent person with planning experience. The examiner will consider all the comments and look at the Plan carefully to make sure it complies with national laws and policies.  The examiner will then write a report for the Forum and the council in which they will recommend certain changes to make sure the Plan is sound (i.e. complies with law and policy). They will also say whether the Plan can proceed to referendum.

The council will then consider whether they want to accept these recommendations and if it can proceed to referendum. If the council does not agree with the examiner, they will have to provide a good reason why not. The Forum can also still decide if they agree with the council's changes and can always withdraw the Plan.

If the council agrees that the Plan should go to referendum, the council will then organise this referendum. Residents of Whitburn will be invited to vote. If the Plan receives more than 50% of 'yes' votes, it will be adopted. It will then be used to determine planning applications. 

There are some important steps to go through, but we are hoping that by April next year we will have an adopted Plan that works for Whitburn.

As you might remember, the Forum consulted on a draft neighbourhood plan earlier this year. We received lots of comments and support from residents. We then worked with a planning consultant to include these comments into the final Plan and to make sure the Plan was in line with national rules and policies on neighbourhood  planning.

We also took some advice from experts on our sewerage and air quality policies, and we made some changes to the wording and the evidence documents.

We now have a good plan that hopefully has a good chance of being adopted. But before then, there are many more steps to take, which will be explained in the next post. The first step is that the council is inviting residents and others to comment on the plan through its website: www.southtyneside.gov.uk/article/57607/Whitburn-Neighbourhood-Planning
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The deadline is 19 November. Please leave you feedback and provide your support for the plan if you can.

The Whitburn Neighbourhood Forum is happy to announce that we have now finished the Whitburn Neighbourhood Plan and have submitted it to the council. This means that the council is now running a public consultation, on which residents, businesses and other organisations can comment. 

The Plan is made by and for residents and through its policies we want to ensure that any future development will make the village a better place.

The consultation runs until 19 November, You can find out all the documents and ways to comment on the council's website.

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