At its meeting on 13th July 2010 the Parish Council agreed the following policy statement. It did so in order to ensure that its long standing commitment to the preservation of the beauty of the local area is clear to all.

The Parish Council is committed to protecting the AONB and Green Belt. However, it recognises that there may be exceptional cases where a genuine need for rural affordable housing has to be met on greenfield sites, including small-scale incursions into the Green Belt and/or within the AONB. In such cases the Parish Council would seek to co-operate with Local Authorities to ensure that identified sites do not damage the environment, AONB or Green Belt, and to make sure that design and landscaping are appropriate to the setting.

The Parish Council has recently been the subject of several articles and letters in the Bucks Free Press. These are related to the Council’s processes in relation to the provision of Rural Affordable Housing in the Parish. Please see the entries on the news section of this website for an accurate account of the Council’s position.

The Parish has a mandate to explore rural affordable homes for local people which arises from the Appraisal which was carried out in 2002. This resulted in a Parish Plan in 2004 which said the Parish Council would actively explore the possibility of providing rural housing in an appropriate setting - ‘village homes for village people’.

A new Housing Needs Survey is to be carried out in September 2010. Only when the analysis of results is complete will any decision be taken on the next steps in the process.

Best wishes

Peggy Ewart
Chairman