The Durham City Neighbourhood Plan is set for the next stage of public consultation after Councillors on the City of Durham Parish Council unanimously approved the latest version at a Full Council meeting in October.

The Neighbourhood Plan recently underwent a Regulation 14 (public) consultation and the vast number of responses were positive and there were also a number of amends requested to the Plan. The latest version of the Plan represents the culmination of amends to that feedback and, following the Parish Council’s approval, this Plan is now set to go out to another (Regulation 16) public consultation.

Councillor Roger Cornwell, Chair of the City of Durham Parish Council Planning Committee and also of the Neighbourhood Plan Working Party said, “the City of Durham Neighbourhood Plan has reached a major milestone with the submission of the Plan to the County Council for a final consultation, an independent Examination, and a Referendum. At the end of the process Durham City will have a plan shaped by local residents, meeting their hopes and aspirations for the next fifteen years. All planning applications in our City will need to take this Plan into account. The theme of sustainability runs like a golden thread through the Plan. All new development will contribute to a long-term sustainable future for Durham City by ensuring a balanced relationship among environmental, social and economic outcomes”.

Councillor Elizabeth Scott, Chair of the City of Durham Parish Council said, “The City of Durham Parish Council was set up to be a voice for the City. Like our residents, we recognise the need to promote development which is affordable, sustainable and in accordance with the local needs of our Parish. The Neighbourhood Plan is going to allow us to develop a shared vision for our community; creating a strategy for future development in our area and influencing where new homes, shops, offices and other developments are built. This will also allow us to identify and protect important local green spaces as well as ensuring the conservation of our precious World Heritage Site”.
“The Neighbourhood Plan is the work of a team of dedicated volunteers first in the Neighbourhood Planning Forum and latterly in the Parish Working Party. We owe them a tremendous debt of gratitude for all of their hard work”.

The City of Durham Parish Council is hosting a licensing training event for local residents. All are welcome at this event where the Parish Council will have a fantastic training provider – Barrister Mr Nigel Booth of St. John’s Buildings Barrister’s Chambers, Manchester – who specialises in licensing law and who has also authored a number of books on the subject, including the License Review Handbook – www.LicenceReviewHandbook.com.

The event will be taking place from 6pm in Durham Town Hall on 30th September.

The event is designed to provide training free of charge to residents on responding to new licensing applications in our area and more.

At our annual Parish meeting, a number of residents said they’d like to find out more about licensing and the Parish Council has decided to host this event as a result.
Anyone wishing to attend need only sign up to the event via the below Eventbrite link or else write to the Parish Clerk via e-mail at parishclerk@cityofdurham-pc.gov.uk

https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/city-of-durham-licensing-training-event-tickets-70899439131

The Parish Council is looking forward to welcoming you to what promises to be a most informative event

A message from the Chair of the City of Durham Parish Council, Councillor Elizabeth Scott on the closure of the Sands carpark.

The City of Durham Parish Council has contacted Durham County Council and is looking into all issues raised within this video. The Parish Council is clear in their position that this is the wrong scheme for Durham City.

The Parish Council has raised concerns about the felling of the much-loved trees in this carpark. The County Council earlier this year declared a climate emergency and has now felled a large number of trees at a time when we need more trees not less for the City centre.

The Parish Council is also pushing for alternative temporary car parking provision to be made available to ensure that the impact on local businesses as a result of the closure of this carpark is mitigated against. The fact that the a very well-used open air car park in the city centre has been closed at the height of the Summer tourist season is unacceptable.

The Parish Council has also requested that the fencing around the common land be removed immediately. No works are taking place on this land and members of the public do have a right to roam on this land.

On 29th July, the City of Durham Parish Council were notified that the Sands carpark is due to close from the 11th August to enable the construction of the new County Council Headquarters building.

The move to close the Sands car park will result in the loss of one hundred and thirty car parking spaces. In addition to this, the County Council is also taking away the longer stay spaces at the Sidegate carpark and changing the tariffs to this carpark in order to create more short stay spaces. The coach park currently in operation at the Sands will also be moved to Belmont from 11th August. The County Council is also currently consulting on a scheme to introduce 10 parking bays specifically for the use of the Market Traders on a Saturday at Providence Row, over 100m away from the Sands car park, which a number of the traders using high sided vehicles currently use. These changes to the car parking provision in the City are entirely to support the construction of the new County Council Headquarters at the Sands; a scheme the City of Durham Parish Council has long objected to.

Chair of the City of Durham Parish Council Cllr Elizabeth Scott said, “this is really unbelievable from this County Council. They are closing the most central, well used open air carpark in the City at the height of the Summer tourist season. At the same time, they are doing away with the long stay spaces at Sidegate at a time when much of the Prince Bishop’s multi-storey carpark is closed for refurbishment. Where exactly do they expect visitors of the City to park? To add to this, the alternative provision of the replacement coach park at Belmont is totally unsuitable and something we as a Parish Council have never been consulted on. This is all being done to enable the construction of their new County HQ which will have a devastating impact on our City.”

Chair of the City of Durham Parish Council Planning Committee Cllr Roger Cornwell added, “aside from anything else, I know this news will come as a real blow to the many businesses we have in our City centre who rely on visitors to our City for their livelihoods. The County Council say this is “very much business as usual” but it won’t be for the many market traders who are now faced with no parking provision at all ahead of these plans being put in place, nor will it be for the many retailers we have in our City. To add further insult to injury, the Parish Council are only given two weeks’ notice of this.”

The City of Durham Parish Council was invited by Durham County Council to comment to an informal consultation for the proposed application for deregistration, Section 16 Commons Act 2006, of part of the Common Land at the Sands, Durham City.

A copy of the Parish Council’s response to DCC to this initial invitation for comments can be found here:

Parish Council response on Common Land de-registration

There is currently a public consultation underway on the draft Neighbourhood Plan for the City of Durham area. This is your opportunity to have your say on this important document which will help to shape Durham for years to come.

Details of the dates, times and venues of the consultation drop-in events can be found here:

St. John’s Church, Neville’s Cross
Wednesday 22nd May – 2-6pm

St. Giles Church Hall, Gilesgate
Monday June 3rd 3-7pm

St. Nicholas Church, Durham Market Place
Wednesday June 12th 3- 7.30pm

A big thank you to everybody who has donated to our appeal. We reached our initial target of £4,000 in only four days, with donations ranging from £10 to £1,000. This shows the breadth of support we have. With matched funding from the Parish Council we now have enough to apply to the Court for permission to apply for a Judicial Review. Getting permission would mean that a judge agrees the Parish Council has an arguable case to take forward.

Our solicitors have already written a formal letter to the Council setting out our case and asking them to quash the planning permission. The Council have promised a reply by Tuesday 7th May and, while we hope they will concede at this point, our solicitors are already building the case to put to the judge to make sure we get permission. We have until 13th May to file the papers with the Court.

Once permission has been granted, and we are hopeful that if it gets that far it will be, then it will be several months before the full case comes to Court. This will cost many tens of thousands of pounds, and our further, more ambitious ‘stretch’ target of £45,000 is to help fund this.

There is more information about the judicial review process on our solicitors’ website at https://www.richardbuxton.co.uk/the-law/judicial-review-process
Please continue to share, promote and donate to our CrowdJustice campaign using the link below:

https://www.crowdjustice.com/case/legal-challenge-against-dcc-sands-hq/

The City of Durham Parish Council has launched a crowd funding campaign in its fight against Durham County Council’s proposed new Council Headquarters being built on the Sands in the centre of Durham.
The move comes after solicitors acting on behalf of the Parish Council issued the County Council with a pre-action letter on 23rd April requesting that planning permission for the new Headquarters be quashed. In its correspondence to the County Council, Richard Buxton solicitors stated there were four grounds for objecting:
• Unlawful imposition of condition 3 and consequent failure correctly to assess traffic impacts as part of the EIA;
• Failure to consider all relevant alternatives as part of the sequential assessment;
• Failure to take into account and give reasons for not accepting the advice of Historic England and the Council’s Design and Conservation Officer relating to the design of the multi-storey car park;
• Failure to provide “clear and convincing” justification for the harm to the designated heritage assets.
Despite overwhelming local opposition to the plans, Durham County Council’s planning committee voted 8-6 on 5th March in favour of moving County Hall from its current home at Aykley Heads to a new building based on the current Sands car park.
At an extraordinary meeting of the Parish Council on 10th April, Councillors voted unanimously in favour of seeking a judicial review of the scheme and to investigate funding options for carrying out the legal action, after receiving a number of offers of donations from members of the public towards legal costs.
Chair of the City of Durham Parish Council, Cllr Elizabeth Scott said, “the public clearly recognise that the Parish Council is committed to fighting this proposed scheme all the way and a number of members of the public had even offered donations to support us in fighting these plans. As a result, in deciding to move forward with legal action, we also decided to investigate the option of crowd funding. This is a real community-led effort in a bid to try and stop these proposals and get the County Council to go back to the drawing board on this ill-thought out £50million scheme which will have a devastating impact on our City, our local amenity, our environment, traffic, local residents and businesses and our much-loved world heritage site”.
Anyone wishing to donate to the campaign can do so by following the link below and pledging their support:

https://www.crowdjustice.com/case/legal-challenge-against-dcc-sands-hq/

The City of Durham Parish Council’s Grant Award window for 2019/20 is open from 1st April. Any organisation wishing to submit an application for funding may find a copy of the application form here: City of Durham Grant Application Form 2019-2020

Once complete, please submit this application form along with all other supporting documentation to us via e-mail at parishclerk@cityofdurham-pc.gov.uk

Please note that your application must follow the procedure as set out in our grant award policy; a copy of which can be found here:
City of Durham Grant Award Policy

The Parish Council is also keen to understand which of its key priorities your grant application is aligned with. Details of the Parish Council key priorities are set out below:

Priority 1: Enhancing the wellbeing and prosperity of our Parish
Priority 2: Creating a Neighbourhood Plan and representing the Parish on planning matters
Priority 3: Being a voice for the City and working with key partners
Priority 4: Supporting the business community and encouraging tourism
Priority 5: Enhancing the physical environment of our Parish

A full copy of our draft Parish Council strategy for 2019/20 can also be found here: DRAFT_City of Durham Parish Council Strategy 2019-20

Please note: the deadline for all grant applications is the 31st May and funds for successful applications will only be released following the Full Parish Council meeting in June.

Solicitors acting on behalf of the City of Durham Parish Council have written to the County Council to say that, if it were to approve the planning application for a new HQ building on The Sands on the basis of information currently before it, that decision would be unlawful.
This is because the proposal to build the new HQ on The Sands is an integral part of the much larger proposals for Aykley Heads. The accompanying Environmental Statement should have covered all of this. In not doing so it is inadequate and fails to meet both European and National regulations.
The lawyers also add that the proposals do not meet either National or Local plan policies. The consideration of traffic and air quality impacts is inadequate. The alternatives have not been properly considered, and the Council does not have enough information on which it can properly reach a decision.
The Parish Council decided to oppose the proposals at a special meeting on 5 September and lodged its first objection. The Full Council meeting on 27 September discussed this application further and unanimously decided to seek professional legal advice as to whether there are any grounds on which this planning application for the proposed new County HQ could be challenged. The Parish Council commissioned an experienced and well-established law firm in Richard Buxton Environmental and Public Law to provide the Council with legal advice.
“Our solicitors have advised that such grounds for challenge do indeed exist and set these out in a twelve page letter” explains Roger Cornwell, who chairs the Parish Planning Committee. “As the legal advice received also highlights that to determine the application at present would be unlawful, our Planning Committee decided unanimously on 4 January that the proper course of action was to submit this letter to the County Council. That was done later the same evening.”
The planning application is currently on hold, awaiting comments from the Environment Agency which has statutory responsibilities on flooding and air pollution issues.
In submitting this letter, the Parish Council hopes that Durham County Council will reconsider its proposals for the future location of its HQ and listen to the views of hundreds of residents from across the County and the many businesses who have submitted objections to this planning application.

A copy of the solicitors letter can be found here:

Solicitors Letter to DCC