2. What is Planning Aid
• Managed by the RTPI (registered charity)
• Professional volunteers delivering
advice/training/capacity building
• Funded by Communities and Local Government via its
‘Supporting Communities & Neighbourhoods in
Planning Fund’
• Independent & free
• Available where professional fees can’t be afforded
2
3. Activities and priorities
• National Planning Advice Line - 0330 123 9244
• Supporting communities living in England’s top 20%
most deprived areas (defined by the IMD at Local
Authority level)
• Alongside Prince’s Foundation, Locality, NALC;
provide support to the Neighbourhood Planning
Frontrunners (26 of which are operating in East
Midlands/East of England)
3
4. Outreach Areas
• Outreach Area 7 (East
Midlands/East of
England) includes:
• Derbyshire
• Nottinghamshire
• Northamptonshire
• Leicestershire
• Lincolnshire
• Peterborough
• Norfolk/Norwich (north of
Cambridge)
4
5. Where can we work?
20% most deprived Nottingham
(by LA area)
Leicester
Mansfield
Great Yarmouth
Corby
Bolsover
Lincoln
Ashfield
Norwich
Peterborough
East Lindsey
5
7. Hello from Chapel-en-le-Frith
The Good News (what’s
To:-
gone well)
• Enthusiasm for task All You Lovely
• Communication – on all Planning Aid peeps
levels in the East Midlands
• Creativity – in community c/o the converted
engagement & plan office/dining room
preparation
at Becky’s!
• Successful public meetings
• Great website
7
8. Greetings from Chapel Vision !
The Bad News (what ‘s
not gone so well!)
• Sheer volume of activity – a To:-
lot of time & effort between All You Lovely
meetings Planning Aid peeps
• Too much to discuss & not in the East Midlands
enough meeting time
• Sorting out lines of c/o the converted
communication office/dining room
• Learning about all the at Becky’s!
mandatory processes late in
the day!
• Dealing with developers!
8
9. Come to ‘The Chapel’!
The Regrets! (what we’d
do differently next To:-
time)
All You Lovely
Planning Aid peeps
• Get more people involved in the East Midlands
earlier to spread the
workload wider c/o the converted
• Pester the local Council office/dining room
sooner to make sure we at Becky’s!
knew about all the
mandatory/technical stuff
– instead of finding out
half way into it!
Wish you were here – Joe x
9
10. So what of the future?
• Post April?
• Planning Aid/partnership funding uncertain
• 5th wave Frontrunners
• Capacity of communities
• Resourcing the process; particularly referendum costs
• Complexity of and eligibility for support
• Applying learning from lessons learnt
10
7 Outreach Areas identified in the CLG bid – these correspond to the IMD and levels of deprivation in an area. Not government regions as they previously did. In effect this means that most areas are much larger than before, The boundaries of all the areas are being kept fairly fluid, and deliberatively so, to make sure that we can be more responsive both in terms of community need but also in terms of volunteers. Previously we might have had volunteers living in the west of Cqambridgeshire / Hampshire who could volunteer a few miles away in Northamptonshire / Wiltshire because this was a different service. We hope to address this by working closely with neighbouring Outreach Coordinators, but you will still be assigned to a particular area and receive emails from me.
In terms of where we will work, we have agreed with CLG to help the top 20% most deprived communities in England. Defining exactly where these communities are isn’t exactly a straightforward process particularly when you start looking at official statistics. Debate whether we need to look at rankings by LA area or at a smaller scale. After taking advice from the ONS we have taken the view that LA areas are the most sensible scale to work at, whilst recognising that there will be deprived communities in areas which might not necessary be high on the IMD but still need our support. To make sure that we are all working consistently, we have agreed that the 20% target should be defined locally. If we did not do this our area could have very little work as we do not have many communities in the national 20% most deprived areas. Although again there is a need to be a bit flexible with this. Refer to Target Areas – not dissimilar to the areas we were working in last year.
