At a well attended open meeting on 19^th June 2007 at the Village Hall, called by the Parish Council and addressed by Chris Hobbs of the Rural Community Council for Essex, a majority of those present thought it worthwhile to produce a Design Statement for Great Canfield.

The following residents were elected to serve on the Executive Committee of the VDS: Sue Ball (Secretary), Brian Clifton, Tricia Clifton, Henry Green, David Hummel, Robert Mackley, Simon Mainwaring (Treasurer), Jon Sams (Vice-Chairman) and Philip Seers (Chairman).  The Committee met every month in the Village Hall.  All residents of Great Canfield were automatically members of the Association and were very welcome to attend any of the meetings - indeed the project simply couldn't work without them!  The job of the Committee was to provide a forum to discover what all residents think, through asking questions and analysing responses.

A Workshop, to which all residents were invited, took place on a Saturday in November 2007 to set out the progress made in preparing the draft Design Statement and Questionnaire and to receive everyone's suggestions and comments. It featured a display of photos and maps of the Village old and new, descriptions of village activities and gave people an opportunity to have a coffee or a glass of wine, chat and share their views.

A Questionnaire was distributed to each resident in March 2008 to get views on the form and content of the matters to be covered in the Design Statement. With this community feedback available (please go to Questionnaire), the next priority for the Committee was to distil these comments and opinions and derive a meaningful series of recommendations relating to future planning controls within Great Canfield.

To ensure that the views of the community had been properly taken into account, in addition to the Questionnaire distributed to all residents, an Open Evening was held on 8^th September 2008 and copies of the Design Statement as it had evolved were made available for review at the meeting and on this web site.

An Open Meeting was held on 29^th September 2009 at the Village Hall to give all those interested a final opportunity to examine the Design Statement. All comments arising from this were considered and, where appropriate, used in preparing the final version of the document to go to Uttlesford District Council in October 2009 for adoption as part of the planning process.