1 Introduction

Parish Plans were announced in November 2000 in the Government's Rural White Paper "Our Countryside - The Future". Their purpose was stated to be:

"… set out a vision of what is important, how new development can best be fitted in, the design and quality standards it should meet, how to preserve valued local features and to map out the facilities which the community needs to safeguard for the future."

It was also said that plans should "identify key facilities and services, set out the problems that need to be tackled …"

In its guidance, the government says:

"A Parish Plan is a statement of how the community sees itself developing over the next few years. It:

• " reflects the views of all sections of the community;
• " identifies which features and local characteristics people value;
• " identifies local problems and opportunities;
• " spells out how residents want the community to develop in the future;
• " prepares a plan of action to achieve this vision."

This is a Parish Plan for three small villages in Suffolk - Great Bealings, Little Bealings and Playford. The reasons why the parishes joined together can be found in the section on "Chronology and Methodology".

This Parish Plan will deliver the views of the village residents, together with those working and providing services locally (the stakeholders), on a variety of aspects of living in the villages, together with a list of actions aimed at bringing about desired improvements to our village environments. There is a summary of the planned actions at the end of this report.

Editorial note: in this report, when providing information relating to each village, we have generally followed the order Great Bealings, Little Bealings, Playford. This is alphabetical and is based on the naming of the local benefice.