Shepton Mallet residents and businesses are being given the chance to have their say on the town's future planning environment.

The six-week consultation, part of a major planning initiative called the 'Neighbourhood Plan', is open from May 15th to June 25th and is being led by a team of Shepton Mallet residents supported by the Town Council and Somerset Council.

Over the next two weeks, over six thousand local homes and businesses will each receive a twenty-seven page executive summary of the proposed Shepton Mallet Neighbourhood Plan. The plan outlines nineteen planning policies and identifies a new potential development site for the town.

The Neighbourhood Plan also includes proposals to protect nineteen 'green spaces' in Shepton Mallet from future development, some of which have been campaigned for by local residents over many years.

Residents will be able to make considered responses on the proposals online at SMNPlan.org.uk or on paper response forms.

Open days are being held on June 4th and 14th in the Library for residents to meet the team and ask questions about the plan. An information hub in Shepton Mallet Library will also hold copies of the full Neighbourhood Plan, the proposed Green Spaces, and other associated documents.

The proposed planning policies are developed from five sets of objectives: Housing & Built Environment, Transport, Town Centre and Economy, Environment and Health, and Recreation & Community.

A Strategic Environmental Review of the proposed Neighbourhood Plan by an external planning consultant concluded that "significant long-term positive effects are considered likely in relation to community wellbeing, due to the plan bringing forward additional dwellings and improvements and enhancements to existing community and public realm features."

Matt Harrison, Chair of Shepton Mallet Town Council, said, "We have developed aims and objectives, and a set of policies in the five policy areas based on previous community engagement, and we now need the whole community of Shepton Mallet to tell us what you think of them by completing our survey."

The consultation is a crucial part of the planning process, as it provides residents and businesses with the opportunity to have their say on the future planning environment for their town, with the Neighbourhood Plan providing a framework for future developments and decisions.