Civic Society members are playing an active role within The Built Environment working group of the Neighbourhood Planning group under the knowledgeable guidance of Elaine Paterson. This group has gathered relevant data on existing heritage assets, potential for new local listings and is currently trying to determine the extent to which the Plan can make policies pertaining to the public realm – a somewhat grey area in terms of the regulations. The Built Environment group aims to produce policies that offer more detailed protection for heritage assets, beyond the Core Strategy, and also more detailed urban design policies to help ensure that new development is sympathetic with the local environment and heritage assets in particular. Policies will also, hopefully, promote positive change for areas of public realm, much of which is currently highway land of some sort.
