A STEERING committee for Bramshott and Liphook’s neighbourhood development plan has been formed under chairman Susan Garnett.

The parish councillor is a retired lawyer, who lives in Bramshott. She is supported by Michael Croucher, a parish councillor for more than 30 years. Serving her first term as East Hampshire district councillor, Rebecca Standish is also a member of the panel.

Village resident Alistair Cameron, who is a member of the Chiltley Lane Action Group, brings planning experience to the table, as does Darren Ellis, who has worked in transport and grew up in the parish.

David Brocklebank, another Liphook resident, works for a large national house-builder and Alfie Haynes, who works for Hayes Builders, has an extensive knowledge of Liphook and business life in the area.

The steering group, which meets at the former police office at the Millennium Centre, will be looking for additional volunteers to join the various working parties covering sections of the neighbourhood plan.

Mrs Garnett said: “Every parish and town has to have a neighbourhood development plan and central government funding is limited to a possible maximum grant of £9,000 for a full financial year.

“EHDC has undertaken to give us £5,000 and pay for travel and subsistence for our chosen expert as well as offering consultation and printing at the end of our work.

“The South Downs National Park Authority did promise £7,500 but have resiled from that, saying they now have no funds to commit to local plans and they can contribute nothing.

“This is despite the fact one-third of the parish is covered by the designated national park. We have been told they have one officer to service and support about 50 plans.

“The Petersfield Neighbourhood Plan cost £100,000 and we estimate ours will cost far less than that, but the parish council is raising £35,000 as a one-off amount in their precept for 2017/18 to ensure we have funding to complete the plan. The benefit for the community is that once the neighbourhood development plan is adopted the parish will receive 25 per cent of the community infrastructure levy (CIL) from every new property granted permission and built within the parish noundaries, which means the funds will then come back into the parish to repay the costs of preparing the plan.”

Mrs Garnett added: “The enormous amount of work put into the Parish Plan under the chairmanship of Trevor Maroney has been of great value to the steering group and we intend to use some of their work in the preparation of the neighbourhood development plan as we see little point in going behind the work they have done.

“We are anxious to reflect the demograph of Bramshott and Liphook but have found it very hard to find young people willing to join in the work.

“So if there are some young volunteers who would like to join the working parties, could they contact us by emailing [email protected].”

An update on the neighbourhood plan will be given at tomorrow’s parish council meeting at the Peak Centre, Midhurst Road, which starts at 7.30pm.