Norfolk Young Planners Event: "Community Involvement in Planning" – 3 May 2007

On the evening of 3 May a group of about 20 young planners from Norfolk and Suffolk gathered in Norwich to listen to two talks about Community Involvement in Planning.

The first speaker was Tim O’Riordan, emeritus professor from the School of Environmental Sciences at the University of East Anglia. His very engaging talk focused on sustainability in planning. His main message was that we, as planners for the future, should fully integrate sustainable development in the concept of spatial planning. He focused on the responsibility of planners to enthuse and educate others on the importance of this. He discussed a number of ways how this could be done. Examples included paying for non-sustainable activities, e.g. lower council tax for households without cars. His main message was that we as planners should attempt to change the culture and try to integrate sustainability into everyone’s everyday life in a positive way.

The second speaker was Toni Hylton, Community Planner from the East of England Planning Aid Service. She brought the work that Planning Aid does to life with a number of very varying case studies. One of these case studies was the Issues and Options consultation for the Northern City Centre Area Action Plan in Norwich. During this consultation, Planning Aid assisted planners from Norwich City Council with three events at local first and middle schools, and a reminiscence event in a sheltered housing complex.

Another case study was based around a community, who wanted to build a new community centre. Planning Aid has assisted them with designs, obtaining funding and led them through the planning process. The community expressed a desire to build an ‘eco-friendly’ community centre, so they went on study tours to London to gain more insights in all the possibilities.

Through these examples, Toni concluded that community involvement can make a difference. She emphasised the importance of managing expectations and to ensure that these are realistic and practical.

Christine Flittner, Case Worker for Planning Aid, subsequently took centre stage to discuss all the different possibilities of volunteering for Planning Aid.

After the talks everyone moved on to the Slug and Lettuce for a well-deserved drink.

Thanks have to go to the speakers for giving up their time and the Broads Authority, for allowing us to use their facilities. A word of thanks also goes to the other members of the Norfolk Young Planners Group: Robert Hobbs, Jo Negus and Sarah Platt.

If you are interested in helping us organise the next event, either in Norwich or somewhere else, or think that you can do a much better job, then contact Robert Hobbs on RobertHobbs@norwich.gov.uk or 01603-212193.

Dineke van de Oudeweetering

Author:

Tina Jessup

Publisher:

The Royal Town Planning Institute

Date:

28-Jun-07

Categories:

Nations & Regions 

Sections:

Events, Awards & Networking

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