What you need to know
Before taking on a consultant
It is important, before you write the consultants’ brief, to plan out what it is you want from the plan and think about where you need support. If you need help with this, local Community Learning and Development (CLD) staff (most probably based in the local authority or leisure trust) or Third Sector Interface (TSI) staff may be able to help facilitate this process.
Some of the things you might want to think about include:
It’s a good idea to build your local place plan on other plans like a community-led action plan if these already exist .This is to make sure that what you decide about the use of land and buildings is based on a thorough understanding of what your community has said it needs to improve people's quality of life now and in the future. If you are starting from scratch with your LPP you might want to make these connections in future. See our separate briefing on this here.
What capacity do you have to be involved yourselves? This is an important question to ask early on, because involving a consultant doesn’t mean they will do all the work. They will take some of the pressure off you, but your local plan should still be community-led, so you will need to be at the heart of the process, understand how information was gathered and exactly what it might mean.
How much can you realistically take on and what do you need a consultant to do?
Are you clear on what you need to know / the questions you want to ask, or do you need to build in some time for the consultant to support you to work this up?
It might also be helpful to have a look at a few other Local Place Plans - the process they followed, how they set out what they want, which have other actions in them etc. - to see what you like and think about what would work in your area. You will find links to other plans under our Useful links page on this site.
You will also have your own ideas, so knowing what you want your plan to look like and what expectations you have around some of the stages of the process will help when you start to compare what consultants are proposing.
A guide for Local Place Plans