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March 26, 2024
Potential of the Local Place Plan
For as long as communities have been self-organising and taking action to address their needs, they’ve been publishing plans of one sort or another that reflect their aspirations and priorities. These ‘community plans’ are rarely if ever acknowledged by local authorities or any of the other public agencies that participate in that great policy misnomer, Community Planning Partnerships. However, an opportunity, albeit a slim one, has presented itself in which the connection between ‘community’ and ‘planning’ could become a little more meaningful. Beth Landon, a Masters student at UHI explores how to join some of those policy dots.
Abstract
This research explores the experiences of community bodies at the forefront of
developing Local Place Plans (LPPs), to gain insights into the potential for this process
to build capacity for community ownership of land and assets. The Planning (Scotland)
Act 2019, through which LPPs were introduced, is intended to complement Land
Reform and Community Empowerment legislation to achieve this aim. However, there
is uncertainty over whether this will be the case in practice, due to the increased
burden which development of LPPs places on volunteers, low trust in the planning
system and the potential for state co-option of the community sector.
Focusing on a case study in Berwickshire, Scottish Borders, semi-structured
interviews were undertaken with seven representatives of community bodies involved
in LPPs, or considering involvement. The interviews give deep insights into the barriers
and obstacles faced by groups, the most appropriate support and resources they
require and the extent to which involvement is building capacity and aspiration for
community ownership.
The research reveals considerable preexisting involvement in community-led planning
and aspiration for or involvement in community ownership. It also finds potential for
development of LPPs to lead to further community ownership through increased social
capital due to greater connectedness; through a stronger mechanism for the
designation of land and assets of community value; and through enabling a more
robust funding case.
However, the findings reveal the existence of substantial barriers
of pressure on volunteers and the groups’ experiences of the Local Authority as
culturally bureaucratic and centralised, which could negatively impact on social capital
by stifling the self-organisation of communities.
The findings give key insights into the form a co-produced supportive framework might
take, to facilitate a genuinely community-led approach to the development of LPPs.
Such a framework could enable barriers to be overcome and has the potential to
rebuild the trust that will be essential for a working relationship between the community
sector and the local state if LPPs are to lead to increased community ownership of
land and assets.