Don’t forget to submit your feedback on the draft Penzance Neighbourhood Plan!

The consultation on the current draft of the plan is open until Friday 30th December!

How can I submit feedback?

Online

On paper

You can also complete a paper form and post in a ballot box at the following locations:

• The Centre, Newlyn
• The Kings Arms, Paul
• Costcutter, Heamoor
• St John’s Hall, Penzance
• Solomon Browne Memorial Hall, Mousehole
• Penzance Council Offices

Opening days and times for these locations vary so please check their websites before visiting.

Paper copies of the comment forms will be available at the locations listed above or you can download the form in advance, fill it in, and take to your nearest drop-off point.

All comments must be received by Friday 30th December 2022.

The Penzance Parish Neighbourhood Plan will take centre stage at the PZ EXPO event being held in St John’s Hall next week as part of the ongoing public consultation on the Plan, which began on 24 October and runs until 30 December.

The PZ EXPO runs from Thursday 17 to Saturday 19 November, 10am – 5:30pm, at St John’s Hall. Members of the Community Link Group that helped develop the draft Plan will be on hand at the EXPO alongside town councillors, to explain what it means for residents and businesses.

Already, residents have been sharing their views on the Plan at a series of community drop-in events around the Parish – in Penzance, Heamoor, Eastern Green, Alverton, Newlyn and Treneere – with other drop-ins in Paul, Gulval and Mousehole over the next few days.

Cllr Stephen Reynolds, town councillor for Heamoor & Gulval and a member of the Community Link Group, welcomed the response from residents so far: “We’ve already had hundreds of residents visiting our community drop-ins and giving us valuable feedback. It’s really impressive how much people know and understand the issues facing their communities and appreciate what the Plan will do for them.”

The EXPO will be an opportunity to engage with an even wider audience, including schools and businesses as well as local residents. Once the consultation period ends, the Community Link Group will consider all the comments received when finalising the Plan before it goes out to referendum next year.

“It’s all too easy to be cynical about consultations”, commented Cllr Reynolds, “but everything in the Plan is based on what the community told us. That’s why we need people’s feedback to make sure we get it right – not just for our own generation but for future generations too.”

Penzance Council will also be using the EXPO to gather initial public feedback in two other areas that really matter: culture and young people. It’s a great chance to help shape what goes into the new Culture Strategy and Youth Strategy which the Council is starting to develop, and we are especially keen to hear what young people expect from their council.

Cllr Joan Beveridge, town councillor for Penzance East explains “Culture is about people expressing what’s important to them and about them, through the media of the arts; language, painting, sculpture, architecture, literature, music, cinema and the theatre. There is massive scope for the creative sector in Penzance to support the town’s economic growth, it already contributes nearly 10% to the town’s economy with room to grow, and best of all, it’s good for our health and wellbeing.”

Alongside the Penzance Council stands at the EXPO will be a presentation of the investment projects that are going ahead in Penzance and Newlyn with funding from the Town Deal and Future High Streets fund.

Residents and businesses can view and comment on the Neighbourhood Plan online, or pick up and drop off a paper comment form at The Centre, Newlyn; The Kings Arms, Paul; Costcutter, Heamoor; St John’s Hall, Penzance; Solomon Browne Memorial Hall, Mousehole; or the Penzance Council Offices.

Penzance Council has officially approved the current draft of the Penzance Neighbourhood Plan for the consultation process to start later this month.

At a full Penzance Council meeting held on Monday 10 October, Councillors voted to approve the current draft of the Plan so the consultation process can officially begin.

The current draft of the Plan has been in the making since 2015 and is based on extensive public consultation carried out between 2015 and 2019, both at public ‘EXPO’ events and at drop-in sessions within each community.

A Neighbourhood Plan is a way for communities to set out a vision for the future of their Parish, Town or Village to be embedded in Cornwall Council’s planning framework in the form of planning policies. Future developments that need planning permission would need to abide by those policies.

The Community Link Group, established in 2018, includes community representatives from across the Parish and has been fully involved in preparing the draft Plan. The Plan covers the entire Civil Parish of Penzance – both Penzance town itself and the other distinct communities with the Parish including Eastern Green, Gulval, Heamoor, Mousehole, Newlyn, and Paul. Following a pause during the Covid-19 pandemic, the Link Group resumed work on the Plan to produce the most up-to-date version of the draft.

The Plan sets out specific policy sections for Penzance and Newlyn and five general policy areas that would be applied to the entire Parish:

Development, Design & Heritage
Ensure future developments make a positive impact on the physical fabric of our town, villages and communities, respect what we already have and reflect the needs and aspirations of people living and working in the Parish.

Economy
Enable development which will help to grow the local economy through investment and in turn create new jobs with a fair wage.

Housing
Provide homes which are genuinely affordable relative to local incomes, and introduce policies to restrict the impact of second homes in key areas of the Parish.

Natural Environment & Green Infrastructure
Protect the environment, which is essential to our quality of life and well-being, and to the attractiveness of the Parish, and provide good-quality green infrastructure for people such as cycle routes, footpaths and green spaces.

Coastal Vulnerability
Support the designation of Coastal Change Management Areas to address the exposure of our coastline to the increased risk of flooding and storm damage caused by rising sea levels and climate change.

Community drop-in sessions will be held across the Parish so residents can find out more and talk with community representatives who helped to draft the Plan:

A public EXPO event will also be held at St John’s Hall, Thursday 17 – 19 November where residents and businesses can find out more about the Plan alongside other projects planned for our area.

Information leaflets will be mailed out to every residential and business address in the Parish with a full list of the community drop-in events and how to access the Plan in the coming week.

“This plan is our legacy to future generations in our Parish. If we get it right it will ensure that much of what our generation values about where we live will still be there for future generations to enjoy, while also doing what we can to improve housing and real-wage jobs for local people” said Cllr Stephen Reynolds, Community Link Group Member and Ward Councillor for Heamoor and Gulval.

“The feedback we get from the community in this consultation will be invaluable in helping us get it right.”

It is important to remember this is not the final draft of the Plan – this next stage of public consultation will run from Monday 24 October to Friday 30 December 2022, and is known as the ‘Regulation 14 Pre-submission’ public consultation. Feedback from the public will be used to refine the Plan before it goes to Penzance Council for approval. The Plan will then be submitted to Cornwall Council, who will then organise an independent examination of the plan and a further public consultation.

Once all these steps have been completed, residents of the Parish who are registered to vote will have the chance to vote on whether or not to adopt the Plan in a public referendum.

People will be able to submit their views on the draft Plan from Monday 24 October in a number of ways including online, in person, or by post.

View the plan now!