The Neighbourhood Forum serves to collate the latest local planning applications relevant to the Knowle, Dorridge and Bentley Heath Area.
The Neighbourhood Forum’s focus is on tracking and reporting the outcome of planning applications to monitor and evidence whether Neighbourhood Plan policies are being referenced appropriately and applied effectively to all new development in Knowle, Dorridge and Bentley Heath. You can view the current planning applications here.
The Neighbourhood Forum’s capacity and remit is limited and our focus is therefore on the larger or more complex planning applications, or those with potential Area-wide significance. The Neighbourhood Forum does, however, work in conjunction with, and provide advisory support on request to, The Knowle Society and Dorridge and District Residents Associations who deal with the majority of planning applications. Our responses to larger and more complex planning applications can be found here.
The Neighbourhood Forum’s process is:
- The Forum’s Planning Team provides planning policy guidance.
- The Forum will respond to key planning issues affecting the Knowle, Dorridge and Bentley Heath area
- The Forum forwards on a weekly basis all planning applications to The Knowle Society and The Dorridge and District Residents Association for them to review any local planning issues.
If, as a resident, you would like to respond to a planning application, you can do so via Solihull Council’s planning application portal. You can take the planning application number found on our list below to search for the same application within the portal. It is important to understand that, in most cases, the planning process allows only three weeks for responses to new planning applications to be submitted to Solihull Council.
It is important to understand that, in most cases, the planning process allows only three weeks for responses to new planning applications to be submitted to Solihull Council (SMBC). This is a challenging enough timeframe for the NF volunteer team to become aware of and assess the application, and then provide a considered and carefully thought through response. It does not, unfortunately, allow time for community consultation.
Fortunately, the adopted KDBH Neighbourhood Plan (NP), provides a legitimate, robust and objective basis for all NF responses, with supporting reference as appropriate to associated Planning Legislation. NF responses are therefore objective, ie. not based on opinion; and, as far as is possible, consistent, recognising that every application must be assessed on its own merits.