In more detail
A plan is a detailed proposal which sets out a model view of how a place or a project could be, or will be, developed. Plans can be: private or public; owned by an individual or shared by many people and organisations; prescriptive (say what will be) or enabling (say what could be). Local spatial plans – which include neighbourhood plans – are public. They are shared by everyone with an interest in a place. They aim to balance those interests so as to describe how the land can be developed to benefit everyone with an interest.
Plans are, however, never entirely neutral – they are always written from a particular point of view of how things should be. So, for example:
- an engineering plan details a designer’s instructions about how a part or an assembly of parts is to be machined and assembled to make a product
- a business plan sets out a business owner’s view of how a business idea or enterprise will develop in future
- a site plan might set out an architect’s model of how a site will be developed
- a local plan presents a framework agreed by the local authority of how a locality (which could be a village or a neighbourhood, or could be a whole city or conurbation) will develop.
Other Plans Matter...
Everybody makes plans and every active organisation produces plans, in some form. It is hard for a person to achieve much without a plan. For an organisation, or for group of people and organisations, it is impossible. Very small organisations with a simple purpose might rely on verbal plans, but most community groups, voluntary organisations, social enterprises and charities will have some kind of written idea of what they want to achieve and how they plan to do it. Most small businesses will have to produce a plan in order to borrow capital. All larger businesses produce plans – often at different levels: for shareholders, managers, departments, products, markets etc. In public sector organisations - like councils, the police and the NHS - plans are particularly important because these organisations tend to receive and spend resources on the basis of plans, rather than by marketing goods and services.
Weigh Up The Alternatives
A local spatial plan for your place can be a powerful way of setting out a shared vision for the future. It is not, however, the only important plan which affects your locality. It may be that you can improve the place you live or work by: influencing the plans of other organisations, like the council or the local police; working together to deliver existing plans more effectively; or by planning and doing things directly as a local community. A neighbourhood plan has the advantage that it is legally binding – it makes part of a thing called the local planning framework. A neighbourhood plan, however, can’t make things happen by itself and, because it forms part of the local planning framework, there are lots of things it cannot be used to say.
The aim of this toolkit is to help you think through whether neighbourhood planning might work for your place; to look at the alternatives; and, if a neighbourhood plan is right for where you are, to take on planning with confidence and approaches that will work.
| Key Facts:
A neighbourhood plan is a local spatial plan: a public, shared document that says how your place should be developed. How your locality actually develops, however, depends on the plans you make and those made by other organisations - which you can influence. This toolkit will help you look at alternatives and to make a success of community planning - including neighbourhood planning. |
Page Links from here
In this toolkit see:
Life Cycle of a Plan
OR you can use the navigation menu above right to look at other parts of the toolkit.
BIRMINGHAM COMMUNITY PLANNING TOOLKIT DEFINITION SHEET This sheet may be reproduced in paper or electromic or any other form but please mention it was made by Chamberlain Forum Limited for Birmingham City Council supported by Department for Communities and Local Government.
| created: 2016-06-21 05:23:20 | by: admin | status: f published |