Kirkwells' costs have been £6,260 excluding VAT. The contract with Kirkwells includes a further £600 for additional work that the examiner might request.

Both the draft plan and the final submission version were made available to all councillors. The PC, at its meeting on 5th January 2015, agreed that the draft plan should go forward to formal public consultation. Ten councillors were at the meeting and the vote was almost unanimous, with one against, in favour of the draft plan being submitted to the public consultation process, which took place from 19th January 2015 until 1st March 2015. After this, the final submission plan was produced and a presentation made to councillors on 5th September 2016. Councillors then approved the plan to go forward to the next stage of consultation on 3rd October 2016. The second consultation period was arranged by RVBC and the consultation results and plan documentation are now with the examiner.

Full details of the voting results can be found below.

The Kirkwells representative did not vote. The top table voting was from the three presenters, the secretary of the meeting and the person collecting the proformas from the tables.

Issues raised by residents at various consultation meetings included the need for affordable homes for both younger and older residents. As Kirkwells explained at a PC meeting, the current legislation only requires affordable homes for developments of 10 or more houses. In BBB, we are proposing a maximum of eight dwellings and so affordable housing legislation will not apply. However, the estate owner wishes for a mixture of retirement and starter homes and has proposed that he would insist on covenants being written into any agreements for development to ensure that this happens. See the letter from the Bolton Hall Estate below.

The Steering Group held many consultation meetings with residents. Pages 12 to 14 of the submission version of the plan, shown below, contain a summary of the consultation. In addition, a consultation statement was prepared for the examiner and this can also be seen below.

Subject to its adoption, the Neighbourhood Plan will become part of the Ribble Valley Core Strategy.

The Plan will need to be consulted whenever planning and development decisions are made which impact on the designated area.

The topics covered by the Neighbourhood Plan include:

• Transport
• Communications
• Housing
• Environment
• Employment
• Business
• Tourism

Although our villages and hamlets are Tier 2, we still need to consider the above issues to secure the sustainability of our villages in the future.

Yes, the plan contains information about community facilities (pages 34 to 36). Appendix D of the plan, page 54, also contains a list of Parish Actions to improve amenities for residents. A good example is the Heritage Trail, where work has already begun and is being supported by the PC. The Heritage Trail has been a feature of the area for 30 years, but the parish is not in a time warp and tourism is to be encouraged in order to allow others to share the beauty of the area. The Heritage Trail is an updated version of a booklet now out of print, which will assist with this.

Some redaction has been done to protect the identity and data of residents. The amount of redaction required depends upon the number of documents that need to be dealt with. For example, three days' work by the clerk would cost approximately £600 using the costs recommended by the Information Commissioner's Office.

There were different views expressed from residents across the NP designated area. Holden carried out its own survey of residents to gather their views about the NP and the issues that affected them most. The draft plan was modified extensively, particularly the issues relating to roads and footpaths. It is interesting to note that of the 20 people in Holden who returned surveys, 11 expressed the view that new housing in BBB should be left to BBB residents to decide and two supported new development.