Consultation with our community has identified that development pressures on our Parish, mainly due to the need for new housing, is considered to be an issue by our community. Housing is an issue which the Neighbourhood Plan could seek to address, through new planning policy designed to guide/shape new housing in our area.

To understand the issue further, the Steering Group have utilised grant funding available from central government to commission the preparation of a Housing Needs Assessment. This was completed in March 2021. It looks in detail at three areas:

  • Tenure, affordability and the need for affordable housing
  • Type and size of housing
  • Specialist housing for older people

This document is now available to read in full at charthamnp.com.

A Working Group, made up of local volunteers, are currently exploring the best way to deal with housing in the Neighbourhood Plan Area and are expected to report their findings to the Steering Group imminently. Their recommendations will be published in due course.

Once their recommendations are received, the Steering Group will consider the best way to incorporate housing issues into the Neighbourhood Plan.

If you have any questions, or would like to know more about the Chartham Neighbourhood Plan please visit charthamnp.com or contact us at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. / 01227 738 110.

Do you care about how climate change impacts your neighbourhood? What are your favourite views of Chartham? Are you a local business?  

The neighbourhood planning team need you to complete our surveys to help shape the future of Chartham parish. Your answers will enable us to develop policies that will help protect and enhance the things you value. 

All you need to do is visit https://charthamnp.com/index.php/news/topic-paper-consultation and choose which survey (or surveys) you’d like to complete. 

Thank you so much – your views are hugely important. 

The working groups have been running since mid-January and are now well into their stride. The groups are:  

  • Built Environment & Heritage 
  • Climate Change 
  • Economy
  • Health & Wellbeing
  • Housing
  • Landscape & Biodiversity
  • Transport & Travel 

Their work is to:  

  1. Identify the current issues and future aspirations (for each topic) of those who live and work in the parish. 
  2. Explore those issues and aspirations, ways to address them and gather evidence to support any policies they may wish to recommend are included in the plan. 
  3. Each group are preparing a ‘topic paper’ setting out what they have looked at and their recommendations.

These topic papers (and recommendations within them) will be used by the Steering Group to begin writing the neighbourhood plan which will in due course guide future development and activity within the parish.

To help our working groups prepare their topic papers, we expect to be launching a series of short consultations soon which will look at specific topics. They will focus on areas where we would like to know more about what our community thinks. Keep an eye on our social media and website for more information. 

Here are just a few of the many ideas our working groups are looking at:

...developing arts & crafts workshops in local business parks, creating ‘hot desking’ business facilities, communal heating to help combat climate change, regeneration of existing brownfield sites, underlining the importance of and protecting local wildlife, flora and fauna, local traffic calming measures, improving connectivity between different areas of the parish... etc.

We are trying to make the most of all of the different grants and support packages available to us, to ensure that our Neighbourhood Plan is backed by as many experts and detailed research as possible. We are also working closely with many local governmental and non-governmental bodies to create the basis for a plan that is wide ranging in its scope. 

We are so grateful to everybody who has given support so far, whether it is filling in one of our questionnaires, volunteering to be part of a working group, or liking and sharing our posts on Facebook. As mentioned above, we will be launching further consultations over the next few months and would hugely appreciate you taking the time to respond to them. It is of the utmost importance that this neighbourhood plan reflects the views and hopes of as many people in the parish as possible. Every single answer is of vital importance and the more responses we receive, the more robust our plan will be.