Extra time given to consider New Forest plan

The publication will now be split into two separate documents – the Management Plan and the Core Strategy or planning policies – to make it easier to understand.

A public meeting will be held in September.

The announcement, made on Friday afternoon, pleased Tina Cant of campaign group Forest Uprising.

“I think it’s a positive step forward. It proves that the new management are thus far living up to their promise to engage properly and listen and understand our concerns,” she said.

One Voice has been having discussions with the NPA for some weeks and NPA interim chief executive Barrie Foley had originally been going to make it public in September, she said.

“We’ve been pressing him to make the announcement sooner rather than later,” she said.

“It’s going in the right direction.”

Mr Foley said he had listened to a wide range of views.

“In particular I have listened to the concern that seven days is not long enough for people to digest the revised Management Plan,” he said.

“Although this is based on something of a misunderstanding – the seven days actually relates to the standard time that papers are issued in advance of a meeting rather than a consultation period – I agree that it would be helpful to give people longer than a week to read and comment on the revised Management Plan in the light of the intense level of interest there has been.

“It has always been the case that the Core Strategy and planning polices would be the subject of a further six-week statutory public consultation.

“The chairman Clive Chatters promised that we would use our discretion and I have talked to Defra about the timetable for the Management Plan. “As a result we intend to give people a full two weeks after the draft Management Plan goes to the authority in October to read and comment on it, with a final draft informed by those comments going for approval to the authority in December.”