PlanLoCaL: Planning for low-carbon living
PlanLoCaL: Planning for low-carbon living
Involving communities at the earliest stage of the development process
A wind turbine on this hill? An array of solar panels on that school? What about a combined heat and power plant for this housing estate and leisure centre? And why is there such little double glazing on old buildings?
These kinds of questions are part and parcel of a local authority’s planning process, along with the siting of new housing developments, roads, schools, industrial estates and the rest.
The model demonstrates the make-up of most British towns, with a modernised centre nestling next to Georgian squares (see photo) with areas of Victorian housing giving way to inter-war housing and newer estates
But now, more than ever, central government expects that these local planning decisions demonstrate a commitment to reducing carbon emissions and contributing to national renewable energy targets. So new low-carbon developments like biomass power stations or ‘eco-villages’, will increasingly feature in the spatial planning that local authorities undertake.
But despite the fact that these planning decisions effect virtually everyone, very few of us - as individuals or as part of one of the communities to which we belong - get involved in the consultation process. And when we do it is often very late in the day by which point it may be just a matter of supporting or objecting to a proposed development.
To address this, CSE’s PlanLoCaL project aims to help a range of organisations and communities to become directly involved from the earliest possible opportunity in the planning of their area’s sustainable development.
Starting in mid-2009, this three-year project is funded by the Empowerment Fund - a funding stream from the Department for Communities and Local Government that encourages greater public engagement with the planning process.
PlanLoCaL (which derives from ‘Planning for Low Carbon Living’) seeks to help communities in England “contribute positively to a low carbon future and have the confidence, knowledge and ambition to influence local plans to achieve this”. There are four strands of work, each of which is starting off as a pilot that can be rolled-out or developed in years 2 and 3 of the project:
- Working with a local authority who are consulting the public on their ‘local development framework’
- Supporting an umbrella group who work directly with communities
- Building the capacity of ‘green’ groups, who are already motivated on the issue of climate change but not engaged with the planning process
- Working with groups who are already knowledgeable about engaging with planning consultations , but who don't necessarily have a focus on sustainability
Work has already begun to support the drawing up of Bath and North East Somerset council's LDF core strategy, and this will include a series of consultation events taking place across the district.
To support the process of engaging the public with the planning process we have produced a striking model of a typical British town showing examples of where renewable energy or other low-carbon developments may be introduced. Built to a scale of 1:250 (in which a car could drive into the lid of a fountain pen) the model is four metres in length (equialent to 1km) and features energy infrastructure, a town centre, suburbs, farms and industrial units (see photos).
Facilitators can use the model, and accompanying exhibition material and hand-outs, to describe the options that planners have before them. It has already had a starring role in two consultation events in Bath & North East Somerset, and at the Green Communities conference in Liverpool.
The model is also available for other local authorities to borrow and use as part of their own 'core strategy' or similar development process, and acts as a useful aid to engaging communities during consultations.
Work has now begun on strand 2 of the PlanLoCaL project, and CSE has joined forces with ACRE (Action for Communities in Rural England) to carry out a number of workshops with their staff to establish more clearly what issues are closest to the hearts of rural community members, with issues such as road safety and play areas scoring highly.
ACRE is a government-backed ‘umbrella group’ that operates at national, regional and local level in support of rural communities across the country. Among its many activities is supporting rural communities as they develop a vision for what they want done in their neighbourhood or parish through ‘community-led planning’.
This project is still in development with strands 3 and 4 in particular, at an early stage. We will add to this profile in due course.