Community Planning Guide

The guide advises town and parish councils on how to initiate parish plans and market town health checks. 

Parish plans involve parishes consulting with the local community about what the area has to offer, what needs improving, what the parish priorities are, and what action plans are needed, while market town health checks involve an in-depth analysis of local needs and priorities in towns.

The council’s guide also breaks new ground by explaining how parish and town plans can influence the wider picture. 

In the New Forest, local parish and town plans are fed directly into other plans, such as the New Forest Community Strategy produced by the Changing Lives Local Strategic Partnership and the Local Development Framework, which outlines planning and development priorities. 

There will also be implications for the National Park Management Plan to be produced by the National Park Authority.

“It sounds like a lot of bureaucracy, but local community plans in fact deal with issues that people feel very strongly about,” said Cllr Jeremy Heron, portfolio holder for Economy and Planning. 

“If people want more street lighting, more benches to sit on, or a refurbished community centre, they can make their views known through town and parish councils, who take these issues into account in their future planning. 

If they are worried about elderly people being isolated or young people being bored, they can feed these concerns into a much wider arena through the community planning process. 

Community plans make sure that any change that takes place is change that local people want, or that will benefit the community as a whole.  Community planning can also help people to generate community spirit and to forge closer links with partner agencies.”

The guide explains how the community planning process works, the benefits, how to produce a plan, and has other useful resources such as advice on consultation and grants forms.