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Community Led Planning

The Government wants local communities to have more control of their own lives, to say what they want in their own community or parish and to work with other organisations to get it done.

In recent years, work on community empowerment has been driven forward through the use of the community-led parish planning process. By working together within the community, local people debate and create their own vision for a sustainable future. Where early links are made with local government and service providers as part of parish plan process, this can result in communities having real influence with decision-makers on public and local services.

Community Led (or Parish) Plans give an opportunity for everyone in your community to make themselves heard. They provide a way for you to say if you want more open spaces, more effective public transport, affordable housing, better access to health care, a chance to buy local produce at local shops and to choose how your community helps everyone in it to relax and make the most of their social and leisure time.

Cambridgeshire ACRE has a long history of working with individual communities to deliver parish plans, brokering the required relationship with local authority officers and setting priorities within the work of Local Strategic Partnerships. Over 40 rural communities have so far created their own action plans as a result of the community-led parish plan process and with Cambridgeshire ACRE's support. The resulting action plans have been used by the Local Strategic Partnerships to shape the District-based Sustainable Community Strategies.

Cambridgeshire ACRE's team of experienced community development workers have a wealth of knowledge about what works when developing a Community Led Plan.

Community led planning in action
To read a case study of how community-led planning helped the East Cambridgeshire village of Witchford, please visit the section resources and downloads.

On-line guide to Community led planning
Communityledplanning.com has been created by Action with Communities in Rural England (ACRE) drawing on the experience fo the Rural Community Action Network practitioners. If you are exploring Community Led Planning from the persective of a community or a local authority then you will find communityledplanning.com a valuable resource.

To discuss how your village could benefit from community led planning, please contact Sarah Johnston on 01353 865027 if your village is in East Cambridgeshire, South Cambridgeshire or Huntingdonshire. If your village is in Fenland, then please contact Sarah Gove at Fenland District Council on 01354 622372.