Where are we with Local Place Plans?

Local Place Plans have steadily been moving up the planning and community development agenda over the last couple of years. Interest has ramped up in recent weeks on the back of Scottish Government draft guidance on Local Living and 20 Minute Neighbourhoods and then Local Development Planning Guidance, each of which refer to Local Place Plans.

In the subsequent events and seminars that have been happening, there have been more questions than answers. For example:

• How should communities go about preparing Local Place Plans?
• What role should local authorities have?
• What will they look like?
• How will they be resourced and implemented?
• How much influence will they have?
• Should they be restricted only to planning matters?

To help answer some of those questions, I thought it would be helpful to share my understanding of where we are at the moment on available information and examples of completed plans.

Information and guidance

• Scottish Government information page about Local Place Plans, including a link to their How To Guide for Communities on Local Place Plans.
• PAS information page about community-led plans and guide to preparing Local Place Plans.
• Various local authorities have webpages about Local Place Planning, for example Fife, Highland and Loch Lomond & the Trossachs National Park.
• SCDC research about the opportunities and challenges of Local Place Plans.

Plans

The Scottish Government has been keen to say that there is no one perfect model of a Local Place Plan. Provided they are community-led and include a spatial vision, they can each look different.

To demonstrate that, here are some of the small number of Local Place Plans produced so far:

• Ferguslie Park pilot Local Place Plan
• Foxbar pilot Local Place Plan
• Wester Hailes Local Place Plan
• Kinning Park Local Place Plan
• Stratherrick and Foyers Local Place Plan
• Arrochar, Tarbet and Ardlui Local Place Plan
• Callander Local Place Plan
• Drymen Local Place Plan
• Luss and Arden Local Place Plan

The last four on that list are already registered on their planning authority's online register of Local Place Plans.

More plans are being produced all the time - work is ongoing in Stranraer, Cupar, Skye, the Black Isle, Nairn, Ardgour and no doubt many other places - so this list will change quickly.

Do you know of any other Local Place Plans? Please share below...