Procurement of Examiner for the Harden Neighbourhood Development Plan

Tender description

1.1 Neighbourhood Planning was introduced by the Localism Act 2011, to allow local communities to shape how the area could grow and develop in the future. This has resulted in several communities in the Bradford district preparing Neighbourhood Development Plans (NDPs). These are planning policy documents that, once adopted, form part of the statutory development plan for the district and will be used to make planning decisions in the area covered. The City of Bradford Metropolitan District Council (CBMDC) must support neighbourhood planning in its area and is responsible for several stages in the process of preparing the NDP 1.2 Work, led by Harden Village Council (the Village Council) (previously Harden Parish Council), on the NDP and accompanying Design Code has been ongoing since 2013, following the designation of its parish area as the “neighbourhood area” to be covered by the NDP. After a first-period formal consultation led by the Village Council, the draft NDP was submitted to the Council in February 2022. A second formal consultation period, led by CBMDC, took place between mid-June and mid-August 2022. Following, the latter consultation period, the NDP preparation process has now reached the stage where it needs to be independently examined to determine whether it meets the Basic Conditions and other requirements set out in legislation. 1.3 Accordingly, CBMDC is seeking to procure and appoint a suitably, qualified and experienced person to undertake the independent examination of the Harden NDP, in with the process set out in the Neighbourhood Planning (General) Regulations 2012 (as amended).