West Worcestershire MP Harriett Baldwin is urging local communities to speed up efforts to create a local neighbourhood plan after the Government announced a £22M fund to help support the process. Local Government Minister Brandon Lewis yesterday wrote to Harriett confirming that £22.5 million of central funding for neighbourhood plans will be available until 2018. Two years ago, Harriett hosted a briefing event with more than 30 parishes to explain how neighbourhood plans are created but one of the major stumbling blocks has been funding. Neighbourhood plans allow local people to have a direct say on what development can take place in their locality and once approved by referendum, it takes priority over any other local plan. Each plan has to undergo an extensive consultation process and requires expert technical input meaning that an average plan costs about £30,000 to complete. Kempsey was given a Government ‘pathfinder’ fund to develop a plan but it is not yet scheduled to be put to a public vote. Harriett said: “I have always believed that planning is best decided at the ultra local level and a neighbourhood plan is the ideal tool for expressing the will of the public. “I have championed this process locally and tried to encourage parishes to start on the task of delivering a plan. Hopefully this new money will be a significant help to those communities who have been put off by cost. “I hope that we will see some further progress – including a vote in Kempsey – very soon.”