Dorset Council proposes to redact deprived areas in plan document

The suggestion is being recommended by the authority’s people and health overview committee.

It will be considered when Cabinet meets to approve the document later in the year.

Wimborne councillor Shane Bartlett said naming the areas could affect house prices in the area which were listed and said that in his own ward some residents would argue that they were not in a deprived area at all.

The committee backed the suggestion to ask the Cabinet to remove the names – but with a link to direct people to where they could find the information.

The current draft of the document reads: “The Dorset rural idyll can conceal hidden deprivation. There are pockets of deprivation, mostly in urban areas (mainly Weymouth and Portland) and also in the east of Dorset in Ferndown (Trickett’s Cross), Wimborne (Leigh Park) and Verwood (Bingham and Three Legged Cross) and also some rural deprivation due to isolation and difficulty accessing housing, transport and essential services.”

The Cabinet will also be asked to decide if the plan, which is being revised partly because of the impact of the pandemic, should be called The Dorset Council Plan or the Dorset Council Corporate Plan.

Several councillors are concerned that people will muddle the council’s overall plan with the Dorset Local Plan which primarily only deals with planning matters and issues such as the allocation of areas for housing and economic development.

Parts of Dorset are among England's 10% most deprived areas Inset: Pixabay

Reference is also likely to be made in the revised document to rural Dorset’s relatively new status as a unitary council area – the 5th largest unitary council in the country by size and the 8th largest unitary council area by population, excluding cities.