Community Life Plans
Facilitating the creation of the UK's first Community Life PlansCommunity Life Plans
Since 2018, the Community Chartering Network (CCN) has been working with communities through the Community Life Plans process (CLP). CLPs support communities to radically improve levels of engagement, participation and leadership in local planning issues. They provide a consensual foundation and framework for sustainable local development. We believe the CLP to be an innovative and comprehensive approach to Local Place Planning.
What are Community Life Plans and how do they work?
Through a series of inclusive and participatory workshops, residents of a ward/locality are supported to identify key assets and priorities for their place. Throughout the process, CLPs seek to secure the participation of all residents and ensure the range of opinions and perspectives in a community are included.
The CLP workshops help residents to articulate the range and variety of activities and assets existing in a community, as well as the broader underlying root causes of local issues and challenges. Through the process, residents come to agreement on core values, principles and themes for desirable and appropriate development.
Workshop outcomes form the basis of Life Plans – local plans that set out aspirations regarding improvements to the quality of the local environment/place, peoples’ well-being and all local development. The Life Plan provides a systemic basis for desirable development, and effective grass-roots action planning and collaboration with local authorities, land/business owners and stakeholders. While it covers a timescale of 5-10 years, it is intended to be a dynamic evolving document continually updated in response to the community’s learning and changing priorities.
Being founded on residents’ lived experiences of their place, CLPs provide a joined-up, holistic plan for community-led development. CLPs act as a catalyst for a longer-term process of resident-led decision-making and participation in local places. We believe they exemplify and realise the Place Principle.
Why are Community Life Plans important?
Residents empowered to take a Place-based approach to community planning and development, increase their opportunities to shape their own lives. Consensual outcomes provide a stronger basis for, and more efficient communication with, local authorities and non-resident stakeholders. This in turn leads to more effective decision-making and a joined-up approach to improving services, land, buildings and other priorities.
The CLPs CCN have completed to-date have achieved unrivalled levels of local participation and consensus, involving over half of all residents in the participating communities. We believe this approach could enhance existing templates for community engagement, and is necessary for motivating residents to lead on carrying forward their own, and national, priorities and objectives at a local level.
Case study
Between 2018-2020 CCN has been working with Strathard Community Council to establish CLPs in all 4 of its Wards. Currently 2 CLPs have been created across 3 Wards, namely the Kinlochard Life Plan (KLP) and the Stronachlachar & Inversnaid Life Plan (SILP) and a process to develop an Aberfoyle Life Plan is underway, scheduled for completino in December 2020. Together, these will constitute a truly resident-led place plan for the whole Community Council area, which embodies the needs and priorities, common and distinct, of its constituent communities, which will be the first of its kind in Scotland and the UK.
These Life Plans are a foundation and core component of the development of the Strathard Framework, a unique collaboration between local communities, planning authorities, land owners and stakeholders around a plan for future rural development and land use, led by the The Loch Lomond and Trossachs National Park.
Kinlochard Life Plan
Kinlochard residents came together due to a concern about local housing issues. They became aware that their housing concerns were intrinsically related to a variety of other local concerns such as the lack of suitable and/or updated/maintained infrastructure, local development and employment opportunities, the availability of public transport, all of which also relate to the opportunities for younger generations to live in or return to the Ward. Residents agreed that an all-encompassing approach that took a broader perspective of the key priorities and concerns about their place was required.
Kinlochard residents articulated important assets and areas fundamental to local health and wellbeing, and the following 4 principles to guide improvement in the ward. These principles inform decisions about the present and future of their place.
- Community – a sense of belonging and a revitalised place to live and work
- Connectedness – being well-informed about matters within and out-with the community
- Guardianship – enhancing the natural environment and historical heritage of Kinlochard
- Autonomy – developing community assets and resident capacity to determine its own future
Residents also agreed on 4 themes for action as being priorities for their area (see top Figure left). The arrows between the themes show how each theme relates and interacts with the others as a part of their holistic systemic vision of place. The 4 principles contextualise the themes by rooting them in residents’ shared understanding of place. This framework then underpinned criteria and zones for protection, or for desirable and appropriate local development and action.
Throughout the Kinlochard Life Plan (KLP) process;
- Around 75% of residents participated directly
- All themes, priorities and the principles underlying the KLP (see below) were agreed by consensus
The Kinlochard Life Plan has given risen to various proactive resident workgroups, all motivated by their common vision and adding tangible benefits to the area. Residents have also developed a system of communication involving the Community Council and local authorities to discuss and resolve issues to do with their place.