What you need to know
Introduction
Local Place Plans are community-led plans, created and submitted by communities so that that they can set out how they think local land and buildings should be developed to improve the quality of life in their communities.
The purpose is to ensure that communities can think about these issues based on what they think their community needs. Planning authorities like Councils and National Parks should then take this into account when deciding how land or buildings where you live should be used and whether proposals from others like housing developers fit with what you think is appropriate in your area, rather than communities having to oppose planning applications to have their voice heard.
Many communities are developing LPPs on their own, however, some communities may want to have access to funding to take on a consultant to help:
Move things forward at a faster rate than the community group would have the capacity to.
With specific tasks the community group doesn’t feel confident about undertaking without support – like the production of maps or understanding the role of the LPP in wider planning laws and processes.
When writing your consultant’s brief, you need to include your expectations of what you want the consultant to deliver, so there are no misunderstandings. You also need to set out the information you expect the consultant to provide – what do you need to know in order to make the right decision about which consultant is the right one?
You want to make sure that the plan you get:
Meets the legal requirements.
Meets your expectations, including what they will do for you and what they will do with you to work on the plan yourselves.
Reflects the views of a wide cross-section of the community, including the views of the most vulnerable.
Is deliverable.
The consultant’s brief should include:
Who the commissioning group is (who holds the money and who will be paying the consultant e.g. your community council, residents or community association).
Who will steer the development of the plan e.g.
if the work is being commissioned by one organisation on behalf of a wider partnership.
the work is being commissioned by an organisation, but the consultant will be working with a smaller sub-group on the development of the plan.
An outline of the area your plan will cover – both details of the geographic boundary of the area as well as some background and context like historic land use or of existing buildings.
What it is you are working to achieve, e.g. increasing space for shared leisure like sports facilities, creating affordable housing or dealing with existing spaces which aren’t being used to benefit the community.
What you want the consultant to do and timescales (the consultant will need to know when your plan needs to be delivered by, but you should also include key milestones that need to be met like the timing of community conversations, draft reports and delivering the plan to the planning authority).
Costings, including a breakdown of the budget available for the work
Resources available. This could include things like office space the consultant can use or staff that might be involved in the process. (See Example Tender Brief below).
Downloads
A guide for Local Place Plans