Effective community engagement in local development plans: consultation response summary

Out of scope matters

Throughout responses to the consultation questions there were matters raised that were thought to be out of scope of the consultation including because the matters went beyond the parameters of the questions asked and the capacity of what guidance can achieve. A flavour of the matters raised is given here:

• Additional research requests
• Finalising the guidance
  • take a cross-sector collaborative approach to finalising the guidance
  • the consultation analysis should be published and go beyond statistics.
• Legislation
  • additional legislation/regulations
  • community right of appeal
  • principle and purpose of local development plans
  • community council’s statutory rights within the planning system
  • rights and influence of community councils in decision making
  • that the ‘Participation Request’ approach (understood for this report to be as provided by the Community Empowerment Act 2015) is not working
  • notification around engagement in local development plans is too limited
  • that the local development plan should be subject to Equality and Human Rights Impact Assessment
  • that a consistent definition of community is needed for all legislation and policy, that recognises shared features between people
  • that there should be review of legislation and policy for community learning and development, including to address resourcing and the workforce, with guidance on measurable indicators sought
• Planning system level
  • different structures and representation needed in the planning system to build community empowerment
  • alleged corruption in the planning system
  • planning system unhelpful for simple development proposals
  • service charges within the planning system
  • planning approvals, cost of supporting infrastructure, and ability to require infrastructure delivery are mis-aligned
  • general comments on planning system’s community empowerment
  • factors used in appeal decisions
  • development design
  • development plan schemes not being published annually
  • procedural matters for the evidence report
  • procedural matters for the gate check and associated assessment report
  • aspects of the process of preparing impact assessments
  • impact assessments lack local engagement
  • accessibility of environmental reports
  • problems of development finance being insufficient to bring forward measures that contribute to place quality
  • that gender mainstreaming should be embedded in policy
  • that addressing poverty would encourage engagement
  • that intersectional approaches should be taken to co-design space
  • data and information
  • information/guidance needed on data gathering skills/ approaches: around community views and going beyond national datasets
  • cross-sectoral data gathering needed
  • that all relevant guidance on engagement and consultation should be in a single document
• Local level
  • availability of information from planning authorities
  • interaction of local and central government decision making
  • national guidance not being applied locally
  • local place plan content, purpose, and impact beyond interaction with the local development plan preparation
  • the loss of community spaces and halls
  • communities tend to engage in opposing unwelcomed change
  • that actions of local authorities rather than the guidance itself will create the impacts
  • there is difficulty in access to planning officers
  • that there has been little physical change locally
• Stakeholders
  • experiences of engagement
  • stakeholder capacity about climate change
  • suggestion of separate guidance for stakeholders to inform engagement
  • that work by Community Learning and Development practitioners often means there is a good sense of community in areas experiencing deprivation
  • that youthwork should also be delivered outside schools
  • that currently views offered by communities are not being heard, including in relation to planning applications
  • feelings of being ignored despite engagement:
  • accountability needs to be in place to generate trust that views will be heard
  • more resources/actions for:
  • investment in public spaces
  • wellbeing and safety of girls
  • engagement with girls and young women
  • engagement with excluded groups of young people
  • that intersectional needs are included through a co-design approach to spaces.