Your views on Littleborough's future wanted

Littleborough Neighbourhood Forum Consultation

How should we plan for Littleborough over the next 10-15 years? That’s the question the Littleborough Neighbourhood Forum will be asking all residents and businesses in Littleborough over a two week period in December.

The Littleborough Neighbourhood Forum is the local community body responsible for preparing a Neighbourhood Development Plan for Littleborough which will guide development and investment in Littleborough over the next 10-15 years.

The questionnaire ‘Your Littleborough – Your Views’ contains 22 key questions to get the community’s initial views before starting to prepare the plan with the co-operation of Rochdale Council. Other statutory bodies and organisations outside Littleborough are also being consulted.

The Secretary of the Forum, Iain Spencer Gerrard, is hoping the questionnaire will bring out the big issues in Littleborough and explore how residents and businesses want the area to improve and change.

He said, "there are big issues about how much and what type of new housing is needed, how we can tackle traffic and parking problems, how should we promote tourism and conservation and what type of jobs do we want to protect or attract in future. There will be pressure from developers and it is essential to keep the Pennine character and identity of the town."

The Littleborough Neighbourhood Plan will be prepared to expand on the Council’s strategic plan for the borough and it will be used to manage new development and identify the community’s investment priorities. Once approved, its policies will be used by the Council to help make decisions on planning applications.

"It is vital that the community gets involved and responds so it can have more control over local planning than in the past", said Iain.

The questionnaire is also appealing for volunteers to come forward to help the Forum.

Deliveries of the questionnaire will begin on Monday 8 December and should be returned by 22 December to one of the 10 collection sites around Littleborough.  

The most convenient way to respond for many will be by visiting the Forum website, where background information is available to explain the questions, and completing the questionnaire: 

• www.littleboroughneighbourhoodforum.org.uk/questionnaire

Councillors Ann Stott, Janet Emsley and John Hartley urge everyone in the community to get involved, saying: "This is just the start of the process. It is important that local people have a say in local matters and we need to get conversations going and issues debated before we start formulating policies. 

"The Government's new planning arrangements have given us this opportunity to take more control of planning in Littleborough so we shouldn’t waste it.

"Reforms to the planning system should give us the opportunity to have more of an input in the decisions that affect our area. We should make the most of this opportunity to influence development in Littleborough."