Over the last couple of years, I’ve been fortunate enough to work with several communities across Scotland on Local Place Plans. I thought it would be useful to share some of what I’ve learned with other communities and with local authorities who’ll be supporting and using Local Place Plans. I’ve picked just four Local Place Plans to focus on.
Before you read on: if your community is unsure of whether to embark on a Place Plan, think carefully before you decide. Preparing a Plan is a substantial piece of work and isn’t necessarily appropriate for every community. You can read more about their pros and cons in the article: Local Place Plans - why bother?
Arrochar, Tarbet & Ardlui: an unusual catalyst
There was an unusual catalyst for producing this Local Place Plan, which was prepared at the same time as the Luss and Arden Local Place Plan.
A large local landowner, Luss Estates, wanted to review its long term plans with community input. Rather than the conventional approach of producing a draft plan and consulting the community about it, they decided to support a community-led engagement exercise to understand community aspirations for their place in the widest possible sense. This was essentially the first stage of producing the Local Place Plan. The local planning authority, Loch Lomond and the Trossachs National Park Authority, then provided further resources for the extra step of converting those community aspirations into a Local Place Plan.
Of course, care had to be taken to avoid the landowner influencing the content of the plan. But the landowner was keen to avoid that risk, and with a local community-led steering group in charge of the process, there was a safeguard in place to avoid it happening.
challenges facing Arrochar and Tarbet
The Local Place Plan that emerged from the community engagement process has a crisp focus on key community aspirations and how to address them, thanks not least to sharp graphics from colleagues at Page\Park Architects.
And, like all the other examples reviewed here, the Plan presents community aspirations in a way that mirrors government agendas - particularly as expressed in National Planning Framework 4. The purpose is simple. Any community looking for support from national and local government, whether that is changes to policy or resources for delivery, is going to find it easier if they make clear that delivering community priorities will also deliver national priorities.
Stratherrick and Foyers: showing how community priorities land on the ground
Stratherrrick and Foyers Local Place Plan followed hot on the heels of a Community Action Plan, produced a year earlier, which aimed to prioritise how to spend substantial amounts of community benefit funding available from renewable power generation.
The local Community Trust, which instigated both plans, had two reasons for preparing the Local Place Plan so soon after the Community Action Plan. Firstly, they wanted to inform future planning policy in the next Local Development Plan, such as encouraging more affordable new homes to help increase the population. No surprise there: that’s what the Scottish Government says is the purpose of Local Place Plans.
So perhaps more significant is the second reason: to help local residents understand and influence how Community Action Plan priorities would land on the ground - for example, where new community facilities and affordable homes should be located. In other words, the Plan was part of a community-led process of helping local people understand how their communities would change in the future, going beyond the planning system to include other place-based aspirations such as transport and outdoor recreation.
The local authority was kept updated throughout the process of producing both Plans, but otherwise let the community get on with the work.
community engagement infographic for Stratherrick and Foyers
Where Council planners really came into their own was when the Local Place Plan was registered. As well as using the Plan to inform the next Local Development Plan, Council planners are asking their development management colleagues to use Local Place Plans when considering planning applications, and other Council departments and Community Planning Partners to support delivery of other aspects of the Plan.
Ardgour Local Place Plan: direct to delivery
At the other end of the Great Glen in Ardgour, the local Community Council and Development Trust were starting from scratch, with no previous plan and limited resources.
Their aim was to establish what they as community organisations should focus on in the future, based on community priorities, as well as influencing planning policy and other public services. In short, they wanted a platform for action based on community priorities. Learning from experience in Stratherrick and Foyers, they decided to combine a community action plan and Local Place Plan into one document; after all, local residents simply want to see their place improved - so creating a single plan makes sense for them.
You can see how the Local Place Plan was developed, and download the finished Plan, from the dedicated website; it was updated as the Plan was prepared, providing a constant up-to-date source of information to anyone who was interested. Now the Plan is registered, the website is being revamped as a hub for information about wider community activities.
extracts from the Ardgour Local Place Plan
True to the Local Place Plan’s dual function as a community action plan too, the Plan identifies broad priorities (the community action plan ‘content’, if you like) as well as containing detailed maps of selected settlements (content that you might expect in a Local Place Plan). Not every settlement is covered in detail - only those where significant change was anticipated. This was a deliberate choice to focus attention on places where change is anticipated, support the local authority planners in developing new planning policy, and make the most of limited resources in preparing the Plan.
Being focussed on action and delivery, the Plan combines quick wins and long term ambitions, all designed to stabilise and increase the population.
In fact, action had already started before the ink was dry. Community organisations used the Plan to secure funding for a paid development worker, the first and most vital step in delivering the Plan - which would have foundered if it had relied on volunteers alone. That new post was advertised within weeks of the Plan being registered in early 2024, and the member of staff is now busy organising sites and resources to build new affordable housing.
Black Isle Local Place Plan: the power of collaboration
The Black Isle Local Place Plan - branded Opportunity Black Isle: your place, y - is very different from the Plans already mentioned, in two distinct ways.
Firstly, it covers a much larger area, spanning nine Community Council areas and well over a dozen settlements. This means that the Plan focuses on strategic challenges and aspirations, rather than trying to manage site-specific change within individual settlements.
Secondly, it was produced in close collaboration with the local authority. In fact, the core team consisted of three people: a community development officer in the Council’s Local Place Plan team, a local project manager with detailed knowledge of the local community, and myself as a planner. This meant that we were able to have in-depth discussions with relevant Council departments as community aspirations emerged - meaning that the proposals in the Plan relating to the public sector could be tested and trialled with relevant services as the Plan was being developed, from planning to transport, the Green Freeport, biodiversity, tourism, community facilities and other issues.
Opportunity Black Isle logo
Of course, not all of the actions in the Plan relate to the public sector. Some will be delivered by local community organisations and others by the private sector through their investment (for example by steering implementation of the Inverness and Cromarty Firth Green Freeport, as explained on page 33 of the Plan). But it is inevitable that many of the Plan’s actions need public sector support in some way.
In her Foreword to the Plan, local constituency MSP Kate Forbes refers to the level of community engagement in developing the Plan, “the most extensive consultation process which I have ever seen carried out across the Black Isle”. She draws attention to the way which engagement results are presented settlement by settlement in the Plan’s appendices: “a statistician’s delight”. Those appendices form a vital library of information for any public, private or voluntary sector organisation involved with the Black Isle.
Beyond that vital role as evidence of community aspirations to inform decision-making, the Plan has now been approved by the local authority in two complementary ways:
The Plan has been registered as a Local Place Plan, meaning that it will be taken into account in preparation of the forthcoming Highland-wide Local Development Plan. One of the planning aspects of the LPP relates to the Inverness and Cromarty Firth Green Freeport: page 33 of the Plan is designed specifically to steer implementation of the Green Freeport, which reflects - from the community's perspective - both the opportunity it presents but also the risk to places if Green Freeport implementation emphasises the Freeport element at the expense of the Green element. That might be of relevance to other communities close to Green Freeports too.
Possible even more importantly, the Plan has been adopted by the Council "as a tool to inform and support decision making about the Black Isle". That’s a clear commitment from the local authority to use the Local Place Plan for wider purposes of place-based decision making across all public services, not just planning - as explained in the Committee Report.
The community is already using the Plan to support bids for funding and resources, for example in expanding an existing community transport scheme to cover the wider Black Isle. They are also in the final steps of establishing a board comprising elected Highland Councillors, Community Councillors and other local residents (including an independent chair) to champion the Plan and its delivery.
Conclusions
Those four Plans are a selection of the Local Place Plans that I have been involved with in the last couple of years. They are not meant to represent the best or the only approaches to Local Place Planning.
New Local Place Plans are being registered all the time. It’s great to see different approaches evolving, from simple plans like the Roslin and Bilston Local Place Plan (one of a number registered by Midlothian Council in June 2024; see item 5.2 on this page) to the much more comprehensive (and therefore more expensive) Wester Hailes Local Place Plan registered by the City of Edinburgh Council.
If there’s one over-riding lesson I’ve learned all this, it’s that no two plans should be the same - just like no two communities are the same. Yes, many communities face similar issues, like inadequate transport and access to housing. But the response to those issues needs to be tailored to each community.
That said, I hope that local authorities will scan across the common issues contained in Local Place Plans that they are registering - for example, genuinely affordable housing supply, community facilities for ‘local living’ and so on - and think how to communicate these to national governments to achieve the change that communities need. Resolving the housing crisis, for example, cannot be achieved through changing local planning policy: it needs changes to national planning policy, as in Wales, and action on taxation and funding.
Local authorities have a vital role in amplifying the voices of their individual communities back up to national government if the promise of National Planning Framework 4 is to be delivered.
