19 July 2025

THE COOKHAM NEIGHBOURHOOD PLAN HAS BEEN APPROVED

The CNP - which is a planning document specific to Cookham – achieved a majority endorsement in the referendum on 17th July 2025. It will help strengthen the planning system to resist unwanted development in our area. The turnout was nearly 25%.  The Cookham Society Committee backed the adoption of the CNP and thanks go to Bill Perry and The Parish Council for driving forward this important plan.
 

The Cookham Village Design Statement (VDS) was jointly sponsored by the Cookham Society and the Parish Council. Since its formal adoption as a Supplementary Planning Document in 2013, it has done much to help protect our lovely village. However, a Neighbourhood Plan has the advantage of having much more weight in the determination of planning issues than a VDS. Fortunately, the VDS is incorporated as an Appendix in the CNP and consequently its role will continue and be strengthened.

Where the area of a Neighbourhood Plan is the same as that of a Parish, the Plan must be initiated and led by the Parish Council. Accordingly, the Parish Council set up a working party in 2020 to create a draft and specialist consultants were appointed to guide the process. The Society (and other local groups) were invited by the Parish to have a seat on the working party committee, and we have been fully involved throughout the five years of consultation, discussion, drafting and redrafting of the document. The result is a Plan that complies with all the legal planning requirements and it has been approved by an external examiner.

Legal planning restraints significantly limit what can be included in a Plan. This means that some issues the working party wanted included have been excluded and the wording of other sections of the document are not as the working party initially wanted. Despite these limitations, the Society believes that adoption of the Plan will help us protect the village from inappropriate development.

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Approval of the CNP brings an additional benefit in its wake. Once adopted, it entitles the Parish to a take a significantly larger proportion of the Community Infrastructure Levy (CIL) which is paid by developers to RBWM when they carry out building projects. This would mean substantially more money for the Parish to use on important Cookham projects.

The referendum version of the Plan along with other information and back- up documents can be found on the Parish website: https://cookham-pc.gov.uk/neighbourhood-plan/.