Neighbourhood Planning

Neighbourhood planning was introduced in the Localism Act 2011. It is an important and powerful tool that gives communities statutory powers to shape how their communities develop. It is an important and powerful tool that gives communities statutory powers to shape how their communities develop. We are preparing a neighbourhood plan, the South Woodford Neighbourhood Plan and this will address the challenges that South Woodford faces today and over the next decade.

From busy shopping areas to lively cultural and religious societies, we want to involve, engage and consult with everyone in producing our neighbourhood plan; building on existing provision to meet local needs across all ages.

The Neighbourhood Plan (NP) being created will cover a neighbourhood area (South Woodford Neighbourhood Forum) that has been recognised by London Borough of Redbridge (LBR) for this purpose. Everyone who lives, works, studies or visits the Plan area is warmly invited to help us in producing the Neighbourhood Plan for South Woodford. Please do get in touch with the South Woodford Society if you want to get involved.

Neighbourhood Planning Update - November 2023

The Society has set up a Neighbourhood Planning Steering Group with four themed groups to look at separate areas within the planning remit: Social, Environmental, Economic and Planning. If you have any interest in any of these areas, please contact the Society and we’ll put you in touch with the right person. We will always welcome anyone at any stage of the process to get involved, whatever your skills, interests or knowledge.

We are working to produce a draft neighbourhood plan, and we anticipate consulting the community on this in Spring 2024.

What is a Neighbourhood Plan?

In very simple terms, a neighbourhood plan is:

• A document that sets out planning policies for the neighbourhood area – planning policies are used to decide whether to approve planning applications

• A plan that is written by the local community, the people who know and love the area, rather than the Local Planning Authority

• A powerful tool to ensure the community gets the right types of development, in the right place

The South Woodford Neighbourhood Forum was designated by London Borough of Redbridge in February 2020.

The South Woodford Neighbourhood Plan will be based on your vision and aims for South Woodford, drawn from evidence, consultation feedback and knowledge of our area. You may remember a survey we conducted at the very start of the process, where you gave us your views, hopes and aspirations for the neighbourhood, as well as agreeing the boundary area of the plan. These views have fed into the vision and aims outlined below. More recently we sought your views on what we should include in our design code. You will be able to read our consultation report soon.

There are three stages to the neighbourhood planning process. Stage one was completed with the approval of the boundary area and official designation of the Neighbourhood Forum, the group of people who will drive the Neighbourhood Plan forward to completion and acceptance.

Stage two, which entails identifying information and evidence used to inform the drafting of policies to include in the plan.

Stage three, following independent examination and having taken account of the examiner's report and a yes vote in a referendum, will bring the plan into force. You can find out more about the process in the Locality Neighbourhood Plans Roadmap.

We will stay in touch to keep you informed and also to invite you to get involved, especially where you have particular areas of interest and expertise.

Our vision

The vision for South Woodford covers the environment, business and culture:

1. South Woodford will be a clean, green and safe environment that is well-managed and maintained for all those who live, work, learn and visit. It will be a place that people of all ages and from all walks of life can be proud of and will want to work together to protect.

2. Our town centre will be even busier and more vibrant with a great shopping experience for all.

3. Our green spaces will be enhanced and an environmentally sensitive culture will be fostered to protect and improve our amenities for everyone’s benefit.

4. The creation of well-designed and well-built structures that benefit all who depend upon South Woodford.

Our aims

We will achieve our vision through a number of strategies and actions:

1. Building a stronger community, fostering a collaborative and inclusive approach.

2. Creating a clean and safe environment.

3. Engendering a coherent and sustainable approach to development to support Redbridge’s policy of becoming net zero by 2030.

4. Ensuring a holistic approach to planning and infrastructure improvements.

5. Improving and increasing access to green spaces within the community, encouraging residents to support biodiversity and Redbridge’s Grow Zones initiative.

6. Enhancing the vibrancy of the town centre with a great variety of businesses.

7. Supporting local businesses through the established South Woodford Business Forum.

8. Preserving the heritage of South Woodford.

To achieve these aims, we’ll be exploring a range of topic areas such as social and community, economic issues, development and infrastructure and sustainability and environment. These will include arts, culture, sport and leisure, green spaces and more.

Our Neighbourhood Plan Introduction

A copy of a presentation given at the beginning of the process, so a good place to start!

Learn More

Neighbourhood Forum & Boundary Area Application ACCEPTED

Redbridge Council accepted our application and started the process of public consultation as required; allowing for the opportunity to comment on the Area boundary amongst other things. At the end of this consultation period in January 2020, Redbridge council collated the responses they had received and submitted a report, together with recommendations to Cabinet. The Forum and Boundary Area were officially approved at the Cabinet Meeting on 11th February 2020, with some amendments as follows:

1. the deletion of the entire boundary to the eastern extremity of the proposed Neighbourhood Plan Area (The Woodford Trading Estate and the Tesco site by the Charlie Brown roundabout)

2. the deletion of the area around Maybank Road, north of the A406/North Circular from the proposed Neighbourhood Plan Area

3. the inclusion of Empress Avenue as part of the proposed Neighbourhood Plan Area.

As we now effectively have the green light from Redbridge Council, our next steps will be to start working on drawing up the Plan, applying for Government funding and creating a schedule of engagement with the wider community.

Neighbourhood Forum Application SUBMITTED

We worked very hard on outlining a boundary area for our plan.  This was based on the general E18 postcode area, with a very slight overlap into parts of Wanstead, Snaresbrook and Woodford.  The boundary area also includes the Woodford Trading estate as we are keen to encourage businesses to promote local employment.  We have also included the Tesco site by the Charlie Brown roundabout for the simple reason that the sheer size and location of that site means that should it be developed into residential, it would have a significant impact on local resources such as doctors surgeries, school places and transport in South Woodford.

We spoke and listened to residents, conducted a survey and worked hard to consolidate this information into our application.

We submitted information as required by Redbridge Council, who accepted our application and started the process of public consultation as required.  This process allowed for the opportunity to comment on the Area boundary amongst other things.

More specifically, Redbridge Council would like to know if you think the proposed Neighbourhood Plan Area boundary is consistent with the South Woodford Area, whether all the land within the boundary of the proposed Neighbourhood Plan Area should be included, and whether you think the proposed Forum designation meets the requirements set out in Parts 2 and 3 of the Town and Country Planning, England, The Neighbourhood Planning (General) Regulations 2012.

Some useful links:

London Borough of Redbridge Local Plan

Neighbourhood Planning by "Locality"