Good `News - we have professional planning help!

Following consultations with "Planning Aid" (the independent body given money by the Government which tries to ensure that communites get a say in planning issues in their areas) we have had some good news - they have assigned us not one but two volunteers with a planning background to help us with our problems. This is REALLY good news.

For those who don't know what Planning Aid is, they give as their aims:

Planning Aid provides free, independent and professional town planning advice and support to communities and individuals who cannot afford to pay planning consultant fees. It complements the work of local planning authorities, but is wholly independent of them.

Planning Aid can help people to:

* Understand and use the planning system
* Participate in preparing plans
* Prepare their own plans for the future of their community
* Comment on planning applications
* Apply for planning permission or appeal against refusal of permission
* Represent themselves at public inquiries.

Planning Aid helps to meet one of the key aims of the government's planning reform agenda, which is to place community engagement at the heart of the planning system.