3.How the Forum and the Steering Group carried out their work

Programme of Activity

Seven Working Groups are meeting regularly to prepare recommendations for incorporation into a draft Neighbourhood Development Plan. The Working Groups are:

  • Conservation and Archaeology
  • Peak District National Park
  • Green Belt
  • Housing Areas
  • Open Spaces
  • Neighbourhood Centre
  • Sustainable Transport

When they have completed their work their recommendations will be consolidated by a steering group drawn from Forum members and that will then be submitted to all Forum members to consider. There will then be a meeting at which all Forum members will be invited to agree and adopt the Plan.

The Draft Neighbourhood Plan then goes out for consultation. All Dore residents, our local councillors and all businesses which operate in Dore have to be consulted at this stage. The consultation will include:

  • Publication of the Draft Neighbourhood Plan via the DVS website and in printed form delivered to all households in Dore.
  • An exhibition held in the village where members of the working groups will be present to explain the Plan.
  • A public meeting where the Draft Neighbourhood Plan will be presented, questions are answered and suggestions are received.
  • A questionnaire survey. This will take the form of an online survey for those with Internet access and an identical paper survey for those without Internet access or who prefer a paper response.
  • Written responses to the Draft Neighbourhood Plan will be invited.

The working groups will review the responses and produce a revised Draft Neighbourhood Plan for the Forum members to approve.

The Draft Neighbourhood Plan will then be submitted to Sheffield City Council and the Peak District National Park Authority to assess its compliance with relevant legislation, with national planning policy, with the strategic policies in the development plan for the local area, and to ensure it is compatible with EU obligations and human rights requirements.

Additionally it is a requirement that an external examiner will report to the two local authorities on the legal basis of the Draft Neighbourhood Plan.

If the Draft Neighbourhood Plan passes this scrutiny then it is put to a referendum of the neighbourhood. People eligible to vote are those who are on the electoral roll at the time of the referendum (approximately 6,000 people). The referendum will be conducted by the electoral officers of Sheffield City Council.

The result of the referendum is decided by a simple majority of those who vote.

The timescale for all of this is difficult to determine at the moment but Working Groups started meeting in December and hope to produce their recommendations by the middle of 2016.

This is a major undertaking. To add some context, the Dore Neighbour Forum comprises nearly 1000 people (the membership of the Dore Village Society). The number of people entitled to make representations at the consultation stage is in the order of 6,000.

The great majority of Neighbourhood Forums in England comprise 20 or fewer people! So we are one of, if not the biggest, Neighbourhood Forum in the country.

3.1 Dore to Door Article by the Chairman of the Steering Group

A Bit of History

While Dore now lies within Sheffield City boundaries, much of it also lies within the Peak District National Park boundaries. Dore once lay within Derbyshire and at its heart still retains the character of a Derbyshire village, but the growth of urban Sheffield and local government boundary changes brought the village within Sheffield’s enlarged boundaries despite its continuing significant physical separation from Sheffield suburbs by Ecclesall Woods and Green Belt fields.

The importance of identifying, celebrating and protecting the distinctive character of Dore has been at the heart of Dore Village Society’s mission and led it to embark on producing a Village Design Statement long before localism became a political mantra.

With the active help of many local people that Statement was published in 2005 with the intention that it should be accepted as Supplementary Planning Guidance (within
the suite of Sheffield City and National Park Planning policies) to manage acceptable development change in Dore.

The Localism Act of 2011 made provision for the devolution of certain decisionmaking powers in England and established a facility for certain community organisations to prepare Neighbourhood Plans which would guide development change in a local area provided that the Neighbourhood Plan is in line with national planning policy (the National Planning Policy Framework or NPPF) and the strategic planning vision for the wider area set by the local authority (in our case both Sheffield City Council and the Peak District National Park Authority). While Dore had got off to an excellent start with its Village Design Statement, six years later the Localism Act provided a formal procedure for producing a Neighbourhood Plan which would sit within a hierarchical nest of development plans from national, to local authority to neighbourhood level. Again Dore got off to a flying start in 2012 to take advantage of the new devolved powers and initiated a detailed exercise, involving working groups, to produce a first draft of a new-style Neighbourhood Plan.

From Village Design Statement to Neighbourhood Plan

Surely, you might say, job done: Dore Village Society had already produced a quasi-Neighbourhood Plan, first as a Design Statement in 2005 and secondly in Neighbourhood Plan format in 2012 after considerable research and drafting by working groups. Well, it’s not that easy. First, the 2012 exercise had to be put on hold because the City Council was not yet ready to manage the formal introduction of Neighbourhood Forums. Secondly, most Neighbourhood Plans are produced by Parish Councils in countryside villages. Dore does not have a Parish Council and needed to be able to demonstrate the appropriate credentials to prepare a Neighbourhood Plan in an inclusive and transparent manner which could secure the eventual support of the majority of those residents voting in a local referendum. While Dore Village Society (hereafter DVS) has a large membership within Dore, it is not a formally recognised local government body. However, the Localism Act provides for both Parish/Town Councils and Neighbourhood Forums to prepare Neighbourhood Plans.

Neighbourhood Forums can be formed by appropriate community groups with the agreement of the relevant local authority. DVS was able to convince both the City Council and the National Park that its large membership could itself constitute a Neighbourhood Forum. Indeed, the DVS membership of nearly one thousand members makes this Neighbourhood Forum one of the largest in the country!

So, on 12 November last year DVS members were invited to the first formal Dore Neighbourhood Forum meeting at King Ecgbert School to make decisions about how the 2012 Plan could be reviewed and redrafted afresh in the manner laid down in the Localism Act. The Forum listened to a presentation given by the DVS Chair, Keith Shaw, and David Crosby, the co-ordinator of previous work on the Plan and an experienced development planner himself, on the work done to date and how that needed to be thoroughly reviewed afresh.

The Forum decided that:

  • A Steering Group should be formed with terms of reference agreed by the Forum to oversee the fresh drafting work and it should consist of both DVS Committee members and non-Committee members
  • Working Groups should be formed from some DVS Committee members and a wide range of fresh volunteers to cover the seven principal sections of the eventual Plan – the Green Belt, Housing Areas, the Peak District Eastern Moorland Fringe, Open Spaces, Conservation and Archaeology, the Village Centre, and Sustainable Transport
  • The Working Groups would in the New Year review the vision and aims produced by the 2012 drafters in each of these areas and then research and consult widely before producing fresh drafting recommendations for the Steering Group in the early summer of 2016
  • Volunteers should be sought to populate the Working Groups

The Principles Governing the Working Groups’ Work

As Chair of the Steering Group I have written to every Working Group member welcoming them on behalf of the Steering Group and setting out how each Working Group should approach its task. This guidance will be sent out by David Crosby as each Working Group is invited to its first meeting in January or February alongside an agenda for the meeting and an extract of the 2012 draft Plan on that Group’s subject area.

This guidance stresses the following points:

  • While Dore has the advantage of having produced an early draft of a Neighbourhood Plan, it is important to both fully review what has been done in the past and then to open out fresh information-gathering and debate. What has been done before is not the end-point for this exercise, but only a highly useful starting-point.
  • Working Groups should treat this as an inclusive exercise and should therefore err on the side of consulting widely and taking great care to consider any views expressed to them.
  • Working groups should not hesitate to co-opt new members with interesting perspectives to offer, particularly those from normally hard to reach groups.
  • Each Working group should painstakingly record who has contacted it or has been contacted and what views they have expressed and produce full minutes of their own proceedings. Without high standards of recording the Steering Group will have difficulty in monitoring progress and the Forum will have difficulty in demonstrating that it has initiated a thorough, inclusive, transparent and valid process when that is scrutinised by the City Council, the National Park Authority and the Planning Inspectorate.
  • Working Groups will be advised by David Crosby on the distinction between Planning policies and Planning proposals. The principal output from Working Group deliberations will be to produce viable local Planning policies which are consistent with the NPPF and the Local Plans of the City and of the National Park.

In short, the Planning policies produced should aim to represent the views of Dore people while being consistent with the upward hierarchy of Development Planning policies. The language used will need to be the language of development planning rather than a catalogue of ‘nice-to-haves’. The process should be demonstrably open, inclusive, transparent, consultative and involving and, remember, the output will be subject to a popular plebiscite.

How to Contribute

Even now it is not too late to volunteer for a Working Group (see subject areas above): you do have to be a member of DVS and ought also to be a Dore resident or have business or work in Dore. If you wish to do so please let David Crosby know as soon as possible on 453 9615 or david.crosby@dorevillage.co.uk. If you wish as an individual or local interest group (whether a member of DVS or not) to express views to any particular Working Group, also contact David (although in due course we will publish the contact details of the Secretaries of each Working Group).

The Timetable

The aim is for Working Groups to report back with detailed recommendations to the Steering Group in June and for the latter to co-ordinate a full draft Neighbourhood Plan over the summer. It will then fall to the Steering Group to present the draft Plan to a meeting of the Neighbourhood Forum (potentially all members of the DVS) for debate and approval and subsequent publication within Dore for public consultation.

Once any necessary adjustments have been made, the draft Plan will undergo a compliance assessment by the City and the National Park to check that it is not inconsistent with their Local Plans and for an independent external examiner to assess whether it satisfactorily meets the national standards for a Neighbourhood Plan. So long as these checks are satisfied, the draft Plan can then be put to a referendum of all those on the electoral roll for Dore and will be approved if supported by a simple majority of those voting. At that point both Sheffield City Council and the Peak District National Park Authority will be obliged to adopt the Dore Neighbourhood Plan as part of the suite of Planning policies (from the NPPF and the two Local Plans to the Neighbourhood Plan) which determine which planning applications for development succeed in Dore.

The Opportunity

This is a major opportunity for Dore people to directly influence how Dore develops in the future; so the Steering Group hopes as many people who care about Dore’s character and development as possible take the chance to contribute to this devolved process as the Working Groups plunge into their tasks over the first half of 2016. Dore to Door and the DVS website will keep Dore residents up to date with progress, as will the DVS public noticeboards which will carry minutes of meetings and the DVS committee members at the Old School office which is manned every Friday morning and also at monthly Saturday open mornings (see Dore to Door for guidance on times).

Citywide Options for Growth

Of course there are many developments and initiatives other than our own Neighbourhood Plan which could impact on Dore’s future. For example, Sheffield City Council is currently preparing a new Local Plan to guide development in the city.

It is intended that the new Plan will be worked up and consulted on with the aim of adoption in 2018 and will then last until 2034. In November 2015 the Council produced a public consultation document proposing a vision for what our city will look like in 2034. The 78 page document can be found on the Council’s website and is entitled “The Sheffield Plan – Our City, Our Future – Citywide Options for Growth”.

One of the first tasks which your Steering Committee in Dore felt it must undertake was to study this document and register detailed comments from Dore’s point of view because the choice of options for the city will have major implications for both the city’s development and for Dore. Our views, helped enormously by David Crosby’s expert analysis, were duly submitted to the City Council before the end of 2015.

In essence the detailed comments submitted boil down to the following:

  • We generally support the document’s Vision for Sheffield and its 8 supporting Aims, except that we feel that the central Vision itself needs to be less myopically focussed solely on a ‘strong and sustainable economy’ and instead state that underpinning the Vision will not only be the strong economy but also the city’s valued and thriving natural assets. Unless Sheffield aims to make much of its glorious natural assets, its vision will look much like any other city’s vision.
  • We endorsed the Council’s provisional view that “the majority of Sheffield’s Green Belt is too environmentally sensitive to be suitable for development, and Areas bordering the Peak District National Park [which of course includes rural Dore] are particularly valuable, and the countryside around Sheffield is one of the city’s distinctive characteristics which makes it a great place to live.” It is important, of course, that this thinking is followed through as the Council reflect on the proposals made to them by landowners and developers in response to the Council’s March 2014 call for potential development sites on Green Belt, because the Council is carrying out a review of its Green Belt at the only time it is allowed to do so, namely when it is reviewing its Local Plan.
  • Our comments make a well argued case for the protection of the Green Belt in the Dore Neighbourhood Area.
  • We have no objection to the Council’s assessment of future housing need (under pressure from Government) of between 40,000 and 46,000 new homes by 2034 with a central estimate of 43,000, so long as the location of those new homes is wisely planned and there is adequate provision for affordable homes within the total.
  • We rejected the estimate of potential windfall development sites as possibly too high, particularly if it was to endanger the distinctive character of housing areas in the south-west and we reminded the Council that the NPPF guidance states that windfall sites should not include residential gardens.
  • We welcomed the proposal that by far the largest contribution to the 43,000 estimate would come from better exploiting urban capacity (19,300), urban intensification including increasing densities in central areas (12,750) and urban remodelling in Neepsend/Shalesmoor and Attercliffe (4,300).
  • We reluctantly accepted the case for ‘confident bite-size’ incursions (6,100 homes) into the Green Belt in the north and east of the city where there was the opportunity to create distinctive new or extended neighbourhoods with a good range of services, shops, local employment and infrastructure, including improvements to public transport networks, such as extending existing Supertram links.
  • We rejected the notion that a balancing figure of 550 homes might be provided in smaller Green Belt releases because this was an arbitrary allocation within a 40,000 to 46,000 range which might not be needed and was contrary to the general policy thrust of the rest of the consultation document.

Christopher Pennell

3.2 Membership of the Steering Group and Working Groups

Membership of the Dore Neighbourhood Plan Steering Group and the Working Groups canbe downloaded here (pdf document)

3.3 Minutes of the Steering Group Meetings

3.4 Minutes of the Working Group Meetings

3.5 Guidance Letters Issued by Steering Group Chair

3.6 Minutes and Feedback of Public Meetings

3.7 Analysis of Returned Housing Questionnaires

This document can be downloaded here.

3.8 Pre-Submission Consultation

This document can be downloaded here.

3.9 Library of Documents Consulted

Evidence Library of documents submitted with the draft Dore Neighbourhood Plan: [for a fuller explanation of each document, see the item marked ** below. Except where marked, all the documents are in Portable Document Format (PDF)]

3.10 The Referendum

There follows text produced at the time of the Referendum to explain its purpose and to set out reasons why a YES vote should be recorded.

1. Background

The Dore Neighbourhood Forum began work on a Neighbourhood Plan in October 2015 under the powers granted in the Localism Act of 2011. Under the guidance and management of a Steering Group which the Forum appointed, seven working groups of local residents began work to develop the principal themes of the Plan and then to test them out on open workshops and other events for residents, local groups and businesses. The Steering Group conducted researches on landscape, historical, biodiversity, leisure, transport, commercial, housing and other issues to develop the scope of the Plan and the evidence to support its emerging policies. Those ideas, which helped to develop clear and useful planning policies, were debated and ideas for future non-planning projects in Dore were parked for inclusion in an annex to the Plan. Over 55 Steering group meetings took place, in addition to meetings with interest groups, residents’ associations and ward councillors and extensive exchanges with our two planning authorities. Formal public consultations took place which led to adjustments in our text as well as professional advice from our planning authorities. Once the Forum submitted its Plan formally to Sheffield City Council in 2020, it underwent another external public consultation, some adjustment, and then a comprehensive scrutiny by an appointed external Examiner.

Throughout this consultative community process, which the Examiner commended as having been thorough and open, the Steering Group kept true to the vision set out for them by the Forum, which itself consisted of no less than 1,000 local people, the entire membership of Dore Village Society. In agreement with the City Council and the National Park Authority, changes were made to the Plan to reflect the recommendations of the Examiner, and while these reduced the impact of some of the policies, the main thrust of the Plan survived intact. It is a Plan of which the community can be proud because it is the community’s own Plan, forged through much hard work and genuine inspiration.

The Referendum asks Dore electors whether they support the City Council and the National Park using the Dore Neighbourhood Plan to help them decide planning applications in Dore Neighbourhood Area. To read the Neighbourhood Plan press the link HERE and to see the Policies Map press the link HERE.

2. Why Should Dore Vote YES at the Referendum on the Plan?

2.1 Neighbourhood Plans are designed to ensure that a distinctive neighbourhood within a wider planning authority can determine planning policies which specifically address their needs and then secure their acceptance within the general planning policies of the wider area. The Local Plan of Sheffield City Council contains planning policies tailored to the needs of neighbourhoods as diverse as Dore, Burngreave, Manor Castle, Mosborough, Nether Edge, Chapeltown and elsewhere. The Local Plan of the Peak District National Park Authority contains planning policies for protected areas of the highest landscape quality from the millstone moorlands of the north to the limestone valleys of the south, encompassing small hamlets and villages and no residential area larger than Bakewell.

The Dore Neighbourhood Plan Area lies half in the City Council area and half in the National Park, and our Plan therefore must address the needs of that distinctive Neighbourhood Area. The Plan acknowledges the reality that Dore Village itself is situated between the highly valued and extensive ancient Ecclesall Woods (with urban Sheffield beyond) on one side and the countryside setting of the magnificent landscapes of the National Park on the other side. We have prepared a Neighbourhood Plan which reflects Dore’s close relationship with the National Park and with Sheffield’s Green Belt, the relatively high quality of our housing stock, our valued internal green spaces and the sense of Dore being a cohesive community and also the ward with the highest average age in Sheffield. This distinctiveness of Dore is the very best reason for Dore having its own homemade Neighbourhood Plan.

2.2 What other Policy reasons are there for supporting our Plan:

  1. Because our Neighbourhood Area lies (roughly half and half) inside both the city and the National Park, our Neighbourhood Plan allows the voice of the National Park to be reflected in our Neighbourhood Plan and demonstrates how Sheffield should regard the valued landscapes and setting of our highly protected neighbour.
  2. Our Plan supports the rights of way and of open access of walkers in the National Park, and the Dore community counts itself as very keen local visitors to the Park who are anxious to play our part in its protection. These landscapes rest within our sight and our activities.
  3. Our Plan has established for the first time for Sheffield and nationally the vital principle that the landscape setting of the National Park lying between the Park’s boundary and the developed edge of Dore is to be respected in planning circles and makes it categorically clear how this principle applies to Long Line. Even in draft the Neighbourhood Plan has already been successfully cited in a planning hearing which turned down proposals for building a small estate of several houses in one of the green gaps on Long Line.
  4. The principle at 3 above means that the preservation of the setting of the National Park no longer rests solely on the fact that the Green Belt between the National Park and developed Dore has a protected status for other reasons. The Plan also signals the community’s strong support for the Green Belt against the five officially approved purposes for creating Green Belt.
  5. In the interests of biodiversity, of landscape conservation and community recreation and leisure, the Plan includes policies which support improvements in the green infrastructure within Dore and its Green Belt.
  6. Our Plan lays down that infill housing development in Dore must be of a high quality and respect the character of our local housing areas and gives guidance on what characteristics are important in this regard.
  7. The Plan supports the development of more small well-designed homes in Dore instead of concentrating on the building of large prestige homes. This reflects the needs of an ageing population and the needs of first-time buyers.
  8. By supporting this Plan, you will secure protected Local Green Space status for seven sites in Dore – Beauchief Gardens, Dore Recreation Ground, Dore Village Green, Kings Coppice Amenity Space ‘The Orchard’, Limb Lane Picnic Site, Totley Brook Green Space and Whirlow Playing Field off Limb Lane. This is reason enough alone for voting YES.
  9. The Plan offers some protection to the vitality of the retail and community assets in central Dore, although this has been somewhat undermined by subsequent changes made by Government to the Planning Uses classification.
  10. There are several policies for safeguarding heritage assets in Dore.
  11. There is a policy to safeguard the park-and-ride facilities at Dore and Totley Station and to encourage sustainable modes of transport in Dore.

2.3 Community Infrastructure Levies

Certain developments in parts of the city, including housing developments in Dore, give rise to Community Infrastructure Levies being paid by the developer to the City Council. 15% of those levy incomes from within a neighbourhood should be spent on infrastructure needs in that neighbourhood, whereas, if the neighbourhood has an Adopted Neighbourhood Plan, 25% of the levy income should be spent within that neighbourhood. Dore may well still have some arguments with the Council about how this 25% is spent, but clearly there remains an important financial incentive for supporting the Plan which could lead to more money being available for local projects.

3. Looking to the Future

While the community worked on the Plan and produced arguments for neighbourhood planning policies, they often suggested ideas which could not be turned into valid planning policies or which required assistance or finance from others, but which ought not to be lost. The Steering Group gathered these ideas and included them in the Neighbourhood Plan as an annex entitled ‘Neighbourhood Aspirations’. The Examiner commended us for doing this and hoped that some of the aspirations would come to fruition.

One good reason for voting YES for the Plan is that it contains in its annex a credible programme of projects which the Dore Village Society, ward councillors and others who have the community’s interests at heart could pursue in the years ahead. There are 18 proposals in the annex for projects like:

  • Improving green infrastructure in and around the village, including developing management plans for each of the new protected Local Green Spaces, extending Totley Brook green space and improving the management of Dore Allotment site.
  • Producing a village centre environmental improvement plan and landscape improvements in front of the Victuallers’ Almhouses on Abbeydale Road South
  • Modestly extending the Dore Conservation Area boundary to include the entire curtilage of Townhead Farm and creating a new Conservation Area on lower Dore Road and to each side of its junction with Abbeydale Road South
  • Pursuing various traffic and parking management plans, including in the village centre, on Long Line and at the difficult Dore Road/Abbeydale Road South junction, and improving heavy vehicle restrictions where necessary.
  • Pursuing improvements to bus services in and from Dore.
  • Researching non-designated heritage assets and securing their recognition

The Dore Neighbourhood Forum strongly recommends that Dore electors VOTE YES to give effect to the community’s own Plan.

3.11 The finalised Adopted Dore Neighbourhood Plan

The text of the finalised Plan can again be found here.

The Dore Neighbourhood Area map can again be found here.