We hope 2017 is the year for voices to be heard and for our Neighbourhood Plan to reach fruition after so many years of effort.

Election of Officers

According to our constitution we need to elect our Coordinator, Chair, Secretary and a Treasurer annually at the first meeting of the year.  Please can we have any volunteers or nominations in advance if possible.  Otherwise nominations can be made at the meeting.

Neighbourhood Plan – next draft

Most important on the agenda for this meeting is the reworking of the draft plan policies to bring them into compliance with the feedback from the Council as far as is possible and reasonable.  In some cases this is simple, in others we may want to challenge the Council on their comments.  The working groups who compiled the original policies per their special interests have been invited to consider how far they can amend their proposals to meet any Council objections.  We hope that they will be able to do so in some instances and the meeting will consider how far we can and how far we resist the council’s steer.

Please come to the meeting with considered opinions on what the Council have said about your own areas of policy interest. Better still, please go to the document on our website (click here for the full document) and use the format to propose any amendments to the policies that may help bring them into a form that either satisfies the Council or which we should resolve to stand by against their opposition. Please email your saved version of the document to info@oldbermondseyforum.org

Neighbourhood Area extension – getting it approved

Several of the Council’s comments on our plan rely on the fact that they have not yet processed our application to amend our geographical area to a more cohesive and manageable one, more like that we originally proposed.  While the Council resist this many of our core policies stand to be challenged on the basis that they need to reach outside of our designated area.

Former Ticino Bakery 176-178 Bermondsey Street – Frontier Estates’ planning application

This application raises issues that bear on both our draft policies for Bermondsey St itself and the Conservation Area.  In this respect, the Forum should consider making some representations to the Council with regard to respecting some of our fledgling policies – which they say they already support.  BVAG has particular concerns about how conservation principles are being applied with respect to this application and members will consider a collective response to the current consultation.
All submitted planning documentation can be found here.  Individual comments are also now possible at the same place.

All Welcome.