Cause for rejoicing! The Village Design Statement is complete and has been approved by Colchester Borough Council. You should expect your own copy to drop through your letterbox in a month or so.
It covers the villages of Peldon, The Wigboroughs, and Salcott cum Virley. Many of you contributed to it by completing a long and detailed questionnaire back in 2009 and a small group have been working on the results ever since.
A Village Design Statement is a statement of a village’s character and qualities. It documents what residents value about their area and what they consider are the important character and features which should be retained and preserved for current and future generations when new developments are considered. Once approved by the Borough Council the VDS must be taken account of when planning applications are assessed.
In giving unanimous approval to our VDS the Borough Council were most complimentary. Comments included “wonderful”, “fabulous”, “interesting and unique”, ”very useful to other groups”, “should be issued to Estate Agents to describe the parish to buyers”. A councillor representing one group who started their VDS before we did said they would be using ours as a model.
Unusually our VDS also includes a Parish Plan which highlights those issues the community would like the Parish Council and other authorities to address. Many suggestions were made during the lengthy process of producing the VDS and Parish Plan – not all of them correctly reported in the recent edition of the County Standard! The Parish Council will be formally considering the feasibility of implementing those suggestions which were supported by a majority of residents.
