planning for good
oneill homer
We offer a full range of neighbourhood planning services to clients, significantly reducing the need for volunteer time and the dependence on local planning authority officers. Clients often ‘don’t know what they don’t know’ and we help steer them through the process, matching our technical and project management skills to their needs.
More than half have succeeded at referendum or are at examination, with many more approaching that stage. In the last couple of years we have also begun to help old and new clients to review, modify and replace their made plans. Almost all of our projects are secured from word of mouth recommendations from clients and from local planning authorities. We also run training sessions for town and parish councils through their regional ALC bodies and regularly sponsor NALC and SLCC events on planning.
We have developed a distinct approach drawn from our unrivalled experience. At the project outset, we use a ‘scenario planning’ approach and our 'Six Drivers Model' to help clients plan for the future by gaining rich, early insights into the context of their plans - 'the art of the possible’. We then use a series of tried and tested document templates and project management processes to enable clients to navigate their plans through to successful examinations.
Our support focuses on those activities where our experience shows we add most value for our clients, including:
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evidence gathering and analysis
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spatial strategy design
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site assessments, including site capacity studies and design briefs and integration with SA/SEA
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planning policy drafting and justification, including design coding and local nature recovery strategy design
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community engagement strategy design and implementation, including public events
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liaison with the planning authority, statutory bodies and land interests
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basic condition statement drafting and advice on consultation statement
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document production, including policy maps
advice on project governance and project management support
examiner selection and examination support
historic buildings and areas, conservation area appraisal, non-designated heritage asset designation
green infrastructure mapping and local green space designation
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We tailor our support to match the client’s own resources and available budget (including where using the grant funding from the Government’s Neighbourhood Planning Support Programme). At every step we aim to increase the client’s understanding of the planning system so they are able to monitor how well their Plan is being implemented by the local planning authority.