Support for preparing a neighbourhood plan or Order

Breckland Council has a duty to provide support and assistance to parish and town councils in the borough that are preparing a neighbourhood plan, although responsibility for producing the neighbourhood plan lies with the town or parish council itself.

We can help by:

• Assigning a dedicated planning policy officer to be your first point of contact.
• Providing general and technical advice, for example on the status of the Local Plan and how this might affect the neighbourhood plan, and on Strategic Environmental Assessment (SEA).
• Making existing data and evidence available, for example that we have already gathered for our own Local Plan.
• Attending occasional meetings with the steering group in your community. We would prefer these to be held online and in working hours if possible.
• Reviewing draft policies and providing comments on whether they are likely to meet the 'basic conditions'.
• Organising the independent examination of the neighbourhood plan and, arranging and carrying out the referendum to let the community decide if the neighbourhood plan should be adopted.

We would, in return, ask that you give us advance notice of any requests so that we can allocate appropriate resources to handle the request.

Funding

The national Neighbourhood Planning Support Programme is run by Locality

Breckland Council is also offering Top Up grants.

Further information on Breckland Neighbourhood Plan Top-up funding

Apply for Top-Up Funding

National support

There is a range of support available from external organisations. A useful starting point isLocality's website (opens new window), which has information on how to develop a neighbourhood plan or neighbourhood development order and what support is available to you.

The​​​​​​​Planning Advisory Service (PAS) (opens new window) is part of the Local Government Association (LGA) and exists to support local planning authorities in providing effective and efficient planning services. PAS is funded by the Department of Levelling Up. The Planning Advisory Service also publishes information about neighbourhood planning.

TheMagicMaps online mapping tool (opens new window) provides access to a range of environmental data and the option to print maps.