IN-PERSON London. Section A

Abstract

Introduced as part of the Localism Act 2011, Neighbourhood Planning introduced new powers for local communities in England and Wales to formally guide development in their area. This new invited space for participation offered greater scope for open-ended and creative engagement in urban future-making practice than formal participatory initiatives within local planning. However, Neighbourhood Planning relies on long-term voluntary participation, and uptake remains uneven across the country. Furthermore, while it may offer novel opportunities for communities to shape place futures, barriers to engagement may limit the potential for Neighbourhood Planning to embrace a wide variety of perspectives and participants within these discussions. In response, this paper explores the potential for the early and conceptual stages of town planning to accommodate accessible and visually-driven co-creation methods, and to translate and integrate these outputs into effective, community-led planning policy. This paper will engage with existing literature and case studies to investigate how co-creative engagement within Neighbourhood Planning could facilitate new dialogues between local planning authorities and communities through co-creative, community-driven discussions around place values and aspirations. It will further investigate the practical potential for wider engagement, given its reliance on significant voluntary input over a long period. The paper will examine the potential for Neighbourhood Planning to support the integration of co-creative outputs into discussions around local place futures that are currently not well-accommodated within local planning frameworks. It will further explore how this model currently supports the inclusion of diverse perspectives within this discourse.