October 2026
Welcome to our 8th Blog post which is designed to be brief with the intention being to inform all our residents that the final version of our Plan has now being agreed between all parties and will be subject to a formal Referendum vote early in 2027.
You will recall from our last Blog described how our draft Plan had been finalised and was then subject to a long period of formal consultation with residents, NFDC and other statutory and interested parties. We are pleased to say that this consultation proved positive and there were no substantial changes to the draft version of our Plan.
However, every Neighbourhood Plan has to comply with a series of regulated steps in order to be eventually approved. These next steps involved NFDC being satisfied that the revised version of the Plan was suitable to be passed forward to the next step, which was to be reviewed by an Independent Inspector. An Inspector was duly appointed via joint agreement between our Parish Council and NFDC. The Inspector visited Sandleheath this summer in order to complete his inspection which was concluded in August this year.
His report was very complimentary about our Plan and mentioned how it had been “underpinned by community support and engagement”. He also said that the Plan “includes a range of policies and seeks to bring forward positive and sustainable development…with a clear focus on safeguarding the wider setting of the Parish, allocating land for residential development, maintaining the separation between Sandleheath and Fordingbridge, and setting a context for good design”
His report did recommend minor modifications so that it fully complied with all the latest planning policy guidance, plus several changes to the report structure and numbering etc. Such modifications are not unusual, and it is also normal for both the Parish Council and NFDC to accept them which both did. However, it is also normal for such changes to be subject to another round of formal consultations which, although the Parish Council felt was too long a period, was agreed to take place. This latest consultation has now concluded with no significant amendments, but it did delay our overall timetable.
So, to conclude, the good news is that the final version of our Plan has now been updated and approved and is available at the Parish Council website, link below:
https://sandleheathplan.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2026/10/Sandleheath-NP-Final-version-September-2026.pdf
The next and hopefully final step will be to proceed to the Referendum vote early in the new year. This will be conducted by NFDC who will organise the election process and polling station etc. Local residents will then be asked to vote for either a Yes or No to determine if they support the Plan or not.
Thanks for reading this Blog and look out for more to follow on further details of the Referendum vote. If you have any questions or comments on this version of the Blog, please email them to
clerk@sandleheathparish.co.uk