It can help guide policy on future developments. It can create a template for the design of future buildings, or specify a ratio of houses to flats,or even look at ways to enable self-build homes. It all depends on what the community needs.

Lots of towns and clusters of villages up and down the country are choosing to develop a NP to help define the future of their community. The Town Council believes that we would benefit from a NP so that it will first of all discover what the community really wants, and doesn’t want. Then we can use it to help shape any future development coming to Hingham.

There’s also a financial incentive. If we have a plan in place it means that any CIL payments will increase. That’s when a developer needs to pay the community to make up for the benefit they receive by building in our town.

No it can’t. It can’t stop anything that’s already in the pipeline, and it can’t stop allocations from the Greater Norwich Local Plan. The most it can do in this regard is help defend the town against aggressive development in future.

It can cost thousands of pounds, as there are a number of experts and professionals we’ll need to hire for certain aspects. However, the costs are covered by a number of government grants. The Town Council has a list of available grants and will be applying for them as needed.

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