Flushing resident and NDP Chair David Lansdowne welcomes the first mass survey, delivered to letterboxes and inboxes around the parish this week.

In the past few days you will have received a brown envelope through the post, containing the first mass survey in our Neighbourhood Development Plan (NDP) process. This morning those of you who signed up in advance to complete the survey online will have received the link in an email. We want everyone aged 16 and over to complete the survey, which is vital to the success of the Plan.

It is vital because it gives us all the first opportunity to have our say, as a community, on questions that will shape the future of planning decisions made by Cornwall Council; decisions about new and affordable housing developments and the associated effects on the environment, local traffic, facilities and business.

The survey is a big step forward on the road to the NDP, a document that will become planning law. Our answers to it will ensure that what is set down in the Plan reflects the majority opinion. The main challenge we face is the provision of affordable housing, but before we tackle it, we need to show the level of need with real evidence. The survey will make a start on this and will be followed up over the summer with a more detailed housing needs analysis and further discussions around the parish to determine the contents of our Plan, based on priorities determined by the community.

The NDP will set out the use of land for affordable homes. We will also need to identify landowners willing to support our plan – no easy task perhaps – but it starts here, with this first survey an important stage in establishing the parish’s wishes. There will be a further public vote next spring in a referendum seeking approval for the Plan, and it will not become legal unless it is backed by us, the people, as a parish. The Plan will apply until 2030.

As Chair I am excited to be involved with this project which will have such a lasting effect on the parish. We have a great team of volunteers on our topic groups, helping to pull the plan together, and many others have helped make this survey happen, right down to stuffing the envelopes and sticking the stamps. But it will take all of us, the people who live in our villages and the wider communities around the whole parish, to make a plan that reflects who we are and what we want.

When it is finished and passed into law we will have made something truly worthwhile together. Our time will have been well spent, and that includes the 15 minutes or so I hope you can spend completing the survey.

Please encourage your family members, friends and neighbours to do the same and return it by the deadline of Friday 30 March. If you need further paper copies for anyone who is not online, write an email to comms@mylorflushingplan.uk and we’ll send you a copy.

Thank you for taking the time to do this. This is our future, our plan.