Planning laws allows a community to add extra planning policies for their own area. A Neighbourhood Plan sets out those polices.

A draft Dormansland Neighbourhood Plan has been prepared based on consultations that were carried out in 2015/16 with residents and businesses.

The plan has been delayed for a variety of reasons since the second public consultation event in February 2016 and the situation has changed in a number of respects since then. At that time there was concern that the future of the village would be directly affected by the Tandridge District Local Plan. A Neighbourhood Plan would have helped protect the village against any adverse effects of planning policy changes as a result of the Local Plan.

NEIGHBOURHOOD PLAN UPDATE:

The Dormansland Neighbourhood Plan is in the process of being brought up to date by the Parish Council. As the District Council has now formally withdrawn its Local Plan 2033, it would be prudent for the area to have some additional planning policies in place to ensure the unique character of our area, its open spaces, and buildings of character, are protected with polices specifically for Dormansland.

The planning consultants who produced the first draft of the Neighbourhood Plan have been commissioned to produce a design guide, which has been partly funded by government grant funding. It will provide policies that will need to be followed by applicants to ensure their proposals are in keeping with the rural character of the area. In addition, the Parish Council are proposing to recommend some additions to the Tandridge List of Buildings of Character, as this provides additional planning protections as set out in the national legislation. It is for buildings which don’t quite meet the criteria for Listing by English Heritage but are important locally, architecturally, or historically, and are valued by the community.

The working documents will be available for everyone to see through a link on the Dormansland Parish Council website and there will be a full public consultation once the draft documents are ready.