THAME’S Town Clerk, Helen Stewart, has been awarded an BEM in the Queen’s Birthday Honour’s List, ‘For services to neighbourhood planning in Thame, Oxfordshire’.
As Clerk to Thame Town Council, Helen Stewart has been instrumental in helping the town council draw up and implement Thame’s Neighbourhood Plan, which made history as the first ever housing application for a Neighbourhood Plan to be approved, and which was described as ‘a Trail blazer’, by Government Minister, Nick Boles.
Although parts of the Neighbourhood Plan and the way some designated sites for development were included in it, continue to be controversial, Helen Stewart has been a staunch supporter and defender of the plan and the robustness of the the council’s procedures in drawing it up.
Since the plan was approved by local referendum, new housing developments, and a commercial development more recently, have been passed by the planning authority.
The current Mayor of Thame, Cllr Jeannette Matelot Green, said: ‘’I am delighted that Helen’s invaluable contribution has been recognised in this way, and Thame should be proud of her achievement. I have every confidence that she will bring the same diligence and commitment to the ongoing process of monitoring delivery of the Plan.’’
You can read the full citation for Helen’s award and the reaction of town councillors, on the town council’s website here: LINK
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