Preparing a plan for your place

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The aim of your plan is to:

  • Report the findings of your town study

  • Provide a long term, evidence based vision for the future of your town

  • Provide a framework for its delivery

  • Support further community consultation and funding applications

A good plan will be:

  • Strategic

  • Long term - a minimum of 10 years, but more likely 20 or 25 years

  • Clearly set out what it aims to achieve

  • Firm and determined enough to be achievable

  • Flexible enough to adapt to opportunities

  • Transparent and open

A concept image of Ruthin Future

Image: Ruthin Town Council / Coombs Jones

What Should Your Plan be Like?

In order for your plan to be widely read it should be concise, clear and illustrated. You should be able to add to or amend it as the plan progresses, and it should be widely available in different formats. It might include the following sections:

Background

  • Information about your Plan Team: Who wrote the plan, when did they write it and who owns it?

  • Who and what the plan is for and how should it be used?

  • What are its aims and objectives?

Your place

  • A description of your place and its surroundings (refer back to the evidence you have collected) using plans and photographs where appropriate

  • Strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats

  • Summary of community engagement, a record of what community engagement undertaken and a summary of your findings

Your Vision

  • Your vision statement or key themes

  • How your vision or themes were developed

  • How it responds to your evidence

Delivering the vision

  • What are the themes, approaches and actions that support your vision?

  • What are the key objectives?

  • What are the ‘stepping stone’ projects you have identified, their timescales and estimated cost?

  • Who will take ownership of these projects?

  • How might these projects be funded through public, private and third sector involvement?

Ensuring success

  • What factors might affect its success or threaten its delivery?

  • How will the success of the plan will be measured?

Developing a Vision

Your vision will look toward the future of your place. It will provide an aspirational idea of what your place could be like in the future, if your plan is enacted.

The vision will be an overarching statement of the direction for your place over the period of the plan. It should be concise, unique, aspirational, and forward facing – looking toward what the place will be like in ten years time or more. It will summarise the key features of the plan, and be based on the evidence and views you have already gathered.  If your vision is guided by the views of the community and the evidence you have gathered, it is more likely to influence the Local Authority and Council members.  From your vision, the objectives, aims and outcomes of your plan will be developed. 

Delivering your vision

Once you have defined your vision, you need to set objectives that are more specific and outline how the vision will be achieved. This will create a framework that forms a key part of your Place Plan, and will be used to communicate information to local people, developers, designers, planners and the local authority. It will prioritise projects, attract funding, and set out monitoring procedures. 

You will probably have numerous targets, some of which will be easier to reach than others. Your Plan Team should decide which areas you need to prioritise to achieve your vision. You should generate and review objectives and ideas for projects, thinking about your immediate, short-term and long-term targets. 

Your framework should set out:

  • What the Plan Team, Local Authority and consultants will do to achieve the vision

  • What actions or tasks need to be achieved to meet the vision

  • Projects and the effect these will have in the town

  • Ways of achieving the project, including how much they might cost and how long they might take

  • Where funding could be found to enable the actions

  • Any risks that could prevent the actions being achieved, and how they can be overcome

  • How success will be measured

Your Plan Team should decide which areas you need to target to achieve your vision.  You should generate and review ideas for projects, thinking about immediate, short-term and long-term targets. Take into account existing initiatives and projects in the town and consider how the plan can compliment these.