Reflections on recent Local Place Plans (LPPs)
Introduction
Kevin Murray Associates (KMA) have recently finished co-creating three Local Place Plans (LPPs) in Glasgow, each one in a distinctive part of the city. LPPs are still a relatively new mechanism by which local communities can formally feed into the Scottish planning system, with only a few early plans completed across the country before the current wave.
Over the last year KMA have been working with communities in Springburn; Mount Florida; and around Queen’s Park at Shawlands, Strathbungo, Langside, Battlefield and Camphill, looking to develop robust and authentic community-led plans. Each LPP was developed using KMA’s award-winning place momentum approach, drawing upon lessons from many projects and plan processes across the country. As a team, KMA have been reviewing our learning from these three urban LPPs, each of which has been rewarding, with unique local opportunities and challenges.
Community consultation for the Queen’s Park Neighbourhoods LPP, focussing on Shawlands, Strathbungo, Langside, Battlefield and Camphill areas
What worked well
Local people
The most important element in the success of each LPP process has been the dedication and contribution of local people who care about their area. Each of the LPPs was led by a community group – either a community council or other community body – comprised of passionate local people, with their own range of experience and skills.
Throughout an iterative, multi-stage engagement process, our KMA team met with community members who had a deep affinity and affection for their neighbourhoods. Although there was often some disillusionment with the status quo, or a feeling that their area may have been overlooked in some way, there was a near universal desire to champion and improve their areas.
Each of the three resultant LPPs contains a variety of proposals which will require either community leadership or partnership, ranging from planting programmes and the creation of pocket parks to the redesign of public spaces and the reclaiming of deteriorating local assets. The energy of these local groups will be vital to sustain, and to build upon the important work already done.
Quality of output and language
It was important for both our community clients and the KMA team that the outputs of the LPPs were credible, high-quality documents. They needed to be something that the wider community would be proud of, and that would stand up against other community, private and public sector material.
It is also important that LPPs are accessible to, and readable by, the community, and not overloaded with technical jargon. This can be a challenging line to tread, given their status as formal documents which relate to other national and local policy and formally feed into the planning system as ‘material considerations’.
Good community-owned plans need to be representative of, and feel familiar to, local people. Finding the right tone and language helps to foster a sense of ownership amongst the community, and KMA worked closely with each steering group to ensure that the final documents captured what each community really wanted.
Simple, clear language was used in the promotion of events, and then in reporting and communicating with stakeholders and the wider public. It can be easy to forget that many local people are unaware of the purpose and potential of LPPs and why they should attend events, to contribute and care. The KMA team and steering groups worked hard to engage people over several stages with clear information and visuals.
In-person community engagement at the Letherby Triangle street closure for the Mount Florida LPP
Wider community engagement
Throughout the development of each of the LPPs, the KMA team, along with the steering groups and wider community support teams from each area, used a variety of opportunities and techniques to engage with communities. These were designed to encourage and allow as wide and representative a demographic of local people as possible to input and ranged from focussed stakeholder workshops to Boys’ Brigade activities and disability and accessibility site visits.
Across all of the LPPs, early feedback was strong, with particularly good survey responses throughout Stage 1 (of 3), where local people were keen to feed in their fundamental issues and aspirations. In Springburn in particular, the role of the community clients in encouraging and capturing input was important, with a dedicated team of staff and volunteers who took extra time to sit, explain, and in some cases transcribe for service users. As the process continued, there was some slight drop-off in engagement, until projects and tangible outcomes became clearer towards the conclusion of the process.
While online engagement was a useful tool in reaching those who may not be able to or want to attend events, in-person engagement was key in understanding how people felt about their neighbourhoods, in building a sense of ownership, and in generating useful conversations about the nuance of places, perceptions and relationships. Venues for events were important and impacted footfall in different ways. The Queen’s Park Neighbourhoods group managed to secure the Glasshouses in Queen’s Park for several drop-in events, with marked success, benefitting from strong existing local footfall and local people’s affection for the venue. At Mount Florida, Hampden Stadium was an interesting draw for people and was complimented by free stadium tours. Piggybacking on other events was beneficial at times, although not guaranteed to capture bypassers, while additional incentives such as entertainment or food were often helpful.
School workshops were valuable in Mount Florida, where they engaged with a different demographic and point of view, and related to different priorities and uses. For instance, children and young people’s access to play and green space was important, which linked to active travel routes and how they access these spaces. A feminist walkabout also served an important purpose, which despite low attendance, was an important part of ensuring that an equitable and accessible plan was developed.
Partnership working
Although the scope of each LPP was different, there were consistent overlaps with Glasgow City Council (GCC) policy, strategy and projects.
Each LPP was assigned a liaison contact with the Council Planning team. They were able to attend stakeholder workshops, remain in relatively regular contact with the team, and then review and discuss emerging projects as the plans progressed, particularly in relation to how they aligned or deviated from the Local Development Plan.
There were also useful meetings with GCC’s Liveable Neighbourhoods and Active Travel teams, which were particularly important given the number of overlaps. Liveable Neighbourhoods projects were at various stages of design and delivery across the project areas, as were the Inner South and Inner North City Networks, which impacted upon each LPP differently.
Key Challenges
Feedback
There were some very divided views across communities on certain topics, which were hard to reconcile and therefore did not always create a clear mandate. For instance, the tension between promoting active travel and not being seen to penalise drivers is not particularly new, but it was hard to reconcile in a situation where there ideally has to be a clear stance from the community. This was particularly relevant across these LPPs, where the North and South City Networks are already being rolled out and are planned for each of the areas that we worked in. Housing was also a polarising issue, with local demand – particularly for affordable homes – very important for some, while for others there was fatigue related to development pressure and reticence about further housing, including tensions relating to allocation and immigration. Traffic and parking were other recurring problems for many people, often alongside associated concerns such as safety, accessibility, business and footfall, public transport and place quality.
Stakeholder workshop discussions for the Springburn LPP, where affordable housing was a key topic
Engagement
While there was strong input from each community generally, engagement with their local business community was important, but challenging across the three communities. Both KMA and the steering groups struggled to engage with local businesses at the scale we would ideally like, despite a number of attempts and helpful input from individual owners and employees. This was sometimes linked to the scope of the projects, which related to and impacted on businesses more directly in some areas than in others.
Some Key Lessons
So, the key lessons we would share from our urban neighbourhood LPPs would be:
Each Local Place Plan has its own distinctive area, people and needs: These have implications for the LPP approach, actions, outcomes, and how these relate to wider policies and projects.
Work closely with each steering group from the outset: understanding the drivers and objectives for each LPP is essential to frame the approach, ensuring that the right information is analysed and that resourcing is managed effectively.
In-person events are important (digital engagement not enough on its own): listening, discussing, exploring points, and occasionally ‘soaking up’ anger, can help mitigate division and antagonism, and contribute to building more positive perceptions.
Be honest about conflicting views and aspirations: LPPs are community-led and should reflect the feelings of local people as fairly as possible – so acknowledge diverse views, don’t hide them. That will simply store up more problems for the future.
Draw out and appreciate local understanding and aspiration: For many people, there are often clear, pre-existing ideas of what a place needs, formed by years of lived experience. Don’t impose external perceptions.
Recognise tensions with policy and good practice: There are times when misconceptions or views presented by community members do not neatly align with what planners and other contemporary policymakers might consider to be good practice. Although a challenge, it is important that Local Place Plans are representative of local people’s experience and views.
An educative approach enables meaningful conversations: Great sensitivity may be required to accommodate diverse and evolving points of view in looking to formulate authentic, community-led proposals. Help them to learn how all the parts may work together.
LPPs can assist with Local Development Plans: LPPs can help Councils to deliver objectives by lending legitimacy and support to uses, projects, programmes and ideas. Conflicts can occur between LPPs and LDPs, where the aspirations of local communities differ from those of Local Authorities, but this is rare and their alignment can give extra ‘material weight’ to both.
Resources and funding really matter: Most local communities need proper professional support. If the Scottish Government and Local Authorities are serious about empowering communities, there has to be a meaningful conversation about how LPPs are funded. Some small pots of money are available, but the amounts fall short of what is needed to deliver robust community engagement and credible outputs. A major national fund, such as the Scottish Government Charrette Series, would be a better vehicle.
Finally, the KMA team would like to extend our thanks to the residents, businesses, stakeholders and others who took the time to contribute to each of the LPPs, and to the talented and hardworking community groups who worked so hard to develop authentic and meaningful plans for their communities.