The Neighbourhood Plan for Okehampton Town and Hamlets Parish had been years in the making. In principle, such a Plan is supposed to be prepared by the community, represent the wishes of the Community and act as a local overlay on top of the area Planning document, known as the Joint Local Plan, which was prepared by a group of Councils consisting of Plymouth, South Hams and West Devon. 

One might say, what has a Plan that covers such a large area and sets out strategic ideas for industrial, retail and housing development, let alone all the environmental considerations contained therein, have to do with us in Okehampton! The answer is nota lot! This is exactly why the Coalition Government, all those years ago, came up with the idea of a Neighbourhood Plan, which expressed the wishes of local Communities.

Such a Plan is important because, well written and supported by local people, it has the force of law, with respect to Planning decisions. As it says in the legislation, a Planning Authority (in our case, West Devon Borough Council) has to give consideration, when making decisions, to the rules, views and objectives stated in the Plan.

It would be unfair to name names. Suffice it to say that the Neighbourhood Plan has been the work of a very small group of volunteers, assisted and overseen by the two Councils - Okehampton Town and Okehampton Hamlets Parish Councils. I have met several of the experienced and professional people who had tried to assist the volunteers, over the years and all tell me that their offers of help were rejected and their intelligent advice, ignored. To the extent that most people say that the eventual document was eventually,  just the work of one person.

To put it bluntly, the Examiner, John Slater, considers the existing Steering Committee have not done a good enough job and he considers the Plan should not be put to the vote and that, in his opinion a new version should be prepared.

He writes and I paraphrase "My examination has concluded that the submitted current version of the Plan should not proceed to referendum.". He continues. "This is in part because the procedures for consultation with the community were not carried out in accordance with the law and because the plan, when taken as a whole, does not meet the basic conditions set out in the report for what it ought to contain."

He comments that he does make some useful suggestions in his comments that a new "Steering Group" might consider if the decision was taken to start afresh.

Having read the Plan with some interest, when we arrived to live in Okehampton in 2022, I am pleased and overjoyed that Mr. Slater has decided the way he has. I have campaigned vociferously for over a year and made myself unpopular in some quarters stating that the Plan is not fit for purpose and it would now appear that my strong stance has been vindicated.

When one starts to read the main part of the Examiner's report, the major issue that comes across clearly is how he is fundamentally dissatisfied with the way the Plan was prepared. The words participatory, community, consultative, representative are all words that should have come across strongly, when in fact secretive, failure to take on board recommendations, dictatorial are the words that describe the process. Whilst it is unreasonable to aportion blame to one of the two Parish/Town Councils involved, Hamlets Council has to take the lion's share of the blame as they constantly put themselves forward as the lead authority with the rights, obligations and duty to see that the task was performed competently and they have not done.

Therefore, it is no wonder that a few senior members of the Hamlets Council have recently "fallen on their swords" to use the proverbial expression. However, Mr. Slater's criticsm does not end there, he blames all of the Councils involved in the process, including the Town and West Devon Borough Council. All I can say as a Town Councillor, is that the very day I took my oath of office, I immediately volunteered to make a bad job better but was told by the Town Clerk that it was too late to do anything.

When the news of Mr. Slater's decision was revealed at the Town Council Meeting recently, I questioned why the Council had voted against my Proposal NOT to give Hamlets Council, full rights over the Plan, Cllr. Richard Colman, Deputy Mayor of Okehampton, remarked that "We voted to give them (Hamlets Council) rights over THAT Plan. Now that Plan is lost, we can go back to the drawing board and do it properly".

Now that the role of Hamlets Parish Council in the governance of Okehampton has been seriously diminished by the Boundary Review, it makes no sense that they continue as the "Lead Authority". It will surely be up to the Town Council to take centre stage. There needs to be a "wash up" and a dialogue in the individual Councils, how best to proceed but within a few months I confidently expect, nay demand, that the Town Council is looking to cooperate with community bodies to setup a new Steering Group. Let us hope that this time, the rules and processes for community consultation will be baked into the Constitution of the group from the outset.