Introduction

The Neighbourhood Planning process has been developed as part of the Localism Act and does have real statutory power.

The planning framework is currently set by Cornwall Council, through consultation across the county. The neighbourhood plan will be a reference document for this planning framework, and represent exactly what we want as a community. For further reading please visit www.locality.org.uk which provides an insightful overview for community led organisations, including neighbourhood planning. Locality’s “quick guide to neighbourhood planning” is a great summary of the process.

The overall Neighbourhood Planning process will cumulate in a referendum which invites everybody of voting age within the parish, to answer a simple yes or no question, such as- “Do you want the PZNP to form the decision making document for all future planning applications?” With a simple majority, the community’s ideas become the planning framework for the Parish.

Recent Neighbourhood Plans that have been adopted in Cornwall include “St Eval”, “Quethiock” and “Roseland”.

The Plan covers the entire Penzance Parish area and will therefore need to reflect the aspirations and concerns of each distinct area, be that Penzance, Newlyn, Mousehole, Paul, Heamoor or Gulval. The aim of the PZNP is to ensure that each community area is engaged with.

To see where your home sits within the Penzance stakeholder zones, and comments from members of your community on what they like, don’t like, and would like to change about where they live, visit the ‘have your say’ area of our site.

The Neighbourhood Plan will have real statutory power, and there are processes that must be followed, evidence gathered, and consultation undertaken to inform the policies that will make up the overall plan. Members of the Neighbourhood Planning Board have been on the road visiting each Stakeholder Zone to discuss what affects you in your area. Through this consultation we are developing objectives, and policy options for the draft neighbourhood plan.

The PZNP was launched in February 2015, with an initial consultation phase lasting approximately 10 weeks. We spent four weeks in a pop up shop in Penzance and took our exhibition and proposals out on roadshows including Newlyn, Paul, Mousehole, Gulval and Heamoor. Over the period we estimate that over 3,000 people engaged with the consultation. This first round consultation focused on economic regeneration but also asked people what other issues were important to them. This included: Transport & Getting About; Town and Village Centres; Housing; Open Spaces; Sport & Leisure; Health & Wellbeing; Employment & Skills; and Tourism & Visitors. The results of this initial consultation are available in the “What You Said” section of this website.

Having completed our initial consultation, we sent the results of this Survey via a letterbox drop to all households in the Parish in December 2015. Alongside these results we included a survey addressing housing & facility needs throughout the parish – another key issue to be addressed in the emerging Neighbourhood Plan. The results of this survey are also available in the “What You Said” section of this website.

Last year we held a Penzance EXPO in St John’s Hall to showcase the Neighbourhood Plan’s range of economic regeneration proposals and update on their progress. This was attended by more than 1,000 local people and the response was generally very positive.

Since then the Penzance Regeneration Partnership, which includes the Neighbourhood Plan, Town Council, Cornwall Council, Penzance BID, Tourism Association, Chamber of Commerce and Penwith College, has been working to build on public support for these proposals, maintain the momentum and help to create a new and positive future for Penzance. This has included drafting policies to support the development of the key projects.

A second EXPO is being held in St John’s Hall between 6 – 13 October. This event, which is being organised by key Penzance organisations in partnership with Cornwall Council, will include the unveiling of the final draft Neighbourhood Plan and the formal launch of the six week public consultation. It will also provide an update on progress of the key regeneration initiatives and showcase Penzance to the outside world as an attractive investment prospect.

Following the formal launch, we will be staging a series of specific consultation events and activities, both in the town and surrounding communities, during October and November to encourage all sections of the local community to get involved and to influence the final plan. We will be providing details of these events on the website and on the Penzance Neighbourhood Plan Facebook page as well as via the local media as soon as they have been confirmed.

The responses from this consultation will then be analysed and used to shape the final Neighbourhood Plan document.

Once completed the Plan will be formally submitted to Cornwall Council for consideration, with a local referendum process then carried out by Cornwall Council’s elections team at the beginning of 2019. .