A brief history of the Bridge Neighbourhood Planning Process

The Neighbourhood Plan has been several years in the making. A group of volunteers – some of whom, serve on Bridge Parish Council while others are co-opted by the Council – have worked hard in their spare time to bring the plan to its current stage.

The last draft to be made publicly available in October 2014 was delivered to all addresses in the village (710 dwellings). This draft was developed through a sound process. The survey was delivered to every household in the village. Survey forms were collected, resulting in a total of 340 forms being processed out of 720 distributed. Of the 48% of villagers who responded to the survey, the vast majority wished to maintain the village feel of Bridge. The results showed that “there is a very strong desire to maintain the green spaces between Bridge and the surrounding villages (96.9%) as well as between Bridge and Canterbury (94.8%)”, and “there is a great fear of Bridge becoming either a small town or a suburb of Canterbury. It is important to those living here that it remains a village and is not subsumed into the city”.

Given the strong and longstanding wish for Bridge to retain its village identity two important commitments were written into the plan

• Policy F1 “To ensure that existing areas of open green space within and around the village are retained and their quality improved”
• Policy F4 “To ensure that the development of South Canterbury is suitably contained to protect open space between the city and the village. To maintain the green space between Bridge and Canterbury so that the two areas do not merge.”

It was stressed that “the Neighbourhood Plan will continue to oppose any development in the Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty (AONB) on the south side of Canterbury to maintain the existing open space”. It was noted that “90% of respondents to the Neighbourhood Plan questionnaire opposed the merging of Bridge with South Canterbury which would result in Bridge losing its identity as a thriving rural community.”

Subsequently, the Bridge Village Design Statement of 2013 was published stating “Bridge lies in an Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty. It is separated from the suburban sprawl of Canterbury by a mile of open countryside, something which the people of Bridge are keen to maintain”. The Parish Council “welcomed the completion of a Village Design Statement which analyses the aesthetic makeup of the village and sets out the criteria which should be applied to all new development.”

Bridge Parish Council did a good job representing this view to Canterbury City Council during consultations on the Mountfield Park development in 2013:

“The proposed green corridor in the CDLP seems to be only 250 metres wide in some places and in our view does not provide a sufficient green buffer between the village and the city. It is not clear how robust even this narrow corridor would prove in the face of determined developers in future. There is a strong fear that Bridge will be subsumed into Canterbury within a few years, against the strongly expressed wishes of its residents. If this development is to go ahead, Bridge Parish Council would like to see a much wider protected green space, preserved as Grade 1 / 2 agricultural land in compliance with the NPPF, between the city and the village” (Comment ID PO1890).

In 2014 Canterbury City Council confirmed its support for Bridge Parish Council in its emerging local plan by proposing a Green Gap  around the city:

Historically, some development has occurred outside the urban areas, that has led to the gradual erosion of the open countryside and coalescence between built up areas. The Council is concerned that this gradual coalescence between existing built up areas not only harms the character of the open countryside, but is having an adverse impact on the setting and special character of villages. Therefore, this local plan has proposed an extension to the green gap between Sturry and Broad Oak and a new green gap between Canterbury and Bridge and University and Canterbury to ensure the countryside between these areas are protected (LP 11.44).

In 2014, therefore, Bridge’s future as a village seemed secure. However, since then the status of the village is at risk from two directions. First, the massive Mountfield Park (South Canterbury) development of 4000 homes has been proposed. Second, in the autumn of 2015 Bridge Parish Council changed tack to supporting housing development to the north of the village within the proposed Green Gap, as well as on the Brickfields. Representations against new housing have been made from several villagers, but at present the Parish Council continue to favour this.

For further information please contact our resources and timeline pages. 

For more information on the neighbourhood planning process check out Locality