Q9. Tick the following statements that apply to you.
- I attend cultural activities in my local area as an audience member and/or participant
- I organize cultural activities in my local area
- I run a centre or premises where cultural activities take place (for example, a library, theatre, community hall, pub or another kind of premises).
- Other
If you said ‘other’, please provide more details below.
RTPI Scotland would like to highlight that town planning is an artistic and creative pursuit. Town planning seeks to create liveable, vibrant and diverse town centres through regeneration and placemaking objectives. Placemaking refers to the design and development of high-quality spaces that prioritise the health, happiness and well-being of individuals. The collaborative nature of town planning ensures a wide variety of actors are involved in creating and improving places over time.
The role of culture is fundamental to successful town centres. The cultural value and heritage of a community can determine the design, function and use of public spaces and their infrastructure. In addition, the cultural sector and the historic environment of a place contributes both to tourism and economic development as well as broader placemaking objectives such as sense of community, identity, and health and wellbeing.
In the Planning (Scotland) Act 2019, Local Place Plans (LPPs) were introduced to offer communities the opportunity to develop planning proposals for the use of land in their local area. LPPs are a way in which we can achieve placemaking objectives but they could also provide a useful mechanism for community-led cultural provision and wider community engagement around the planning of town centres.
RTPI Scotland would also like to highlight the increasing role that planning will likely have in supporting the culture sector with the adopted National Planning Framework 4 (NPF4) containing a new policy on culture and creativity. This policy recognises the importance of the sector and requires proposals to make provision for public art, encourages creative and cultural uses, protects existing venues, and reflects the agent of change principle.
Specifically, we would like to draw your attention to the potential role culture could play in achieving the 20 minute neighbourhood policy in NPF4. The 20 minute neighbourhood concept focuses on providing residents with easy access to essential amenities and services within a 20 minute walk or cycle from their homes. Dense, walkable town centres will enhance vibrancy and create opportunities for the arts, culture and creative industries but equally, ensuring local communities have access to cultural amenities and activities means that residents will not have to travel far for cultural experiences, thus reinforcing the 20 minute neighbourhood concept.
Q10. If you attend cultural activities in your local area as an audience member and/or participant:
Please tell us about your attendance or participation in cultural activities in your local area.
For example: What supports you to attend or participate in cultural activities? What barriers have you faced? Do you think there is a good variety and availability of cultural activities to participate in? Or do you think there is currently a unmet need for this in your community, and if so, what is missing?
Please provide your response below.
No comment.
Q11. If you organise cultural activities in your local area:
Please tell us about the cultural activities that you organise in your local area.
For example: What support has there been in place to develop and grow cultural activities or events in your local area? What barriers have you faced? Is there anything you would like to deliver but don’t have the means to? What needs to be in place to enable or to support a variety of cultural activities or events being organised and delivered in your local area?
Please provide your response below.
No comment.
Q12. If you run a centre or premises where cultural activities take place:
Please tell us about the premises that you run and the cultural activities that it hosts.
For example: What are the key things that support cultural activities to take place on your premises? What support has there been in place to grow cultural activities or events in your local area? What barriers have you faced in trying to host cultural activities?
Please provide your response below.
No comment.
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If you chose the ‘other’ option:
Please tell us about your views on the availability and variety of cultural activities and events in local communities, what barriers there are to growing cultural provision locally, and what needs to be in place to enable or to support a variety of local cultural activities or events.
Please provide your response below.
Following our response to Q9, detailing the role of culture in the creation of successful town centres, RTPI Scotland would like to highlight potential barriers to growing cultural provision locally, from a town planning perspective:
Resources and Funding
Town planning and town planners have a crucial role to play in supporting our town centres. However, planning authorities’ budgets have decreased in real terms and resources are limited. Recent research from RTPI Scotland showed that:
• Nearly a third of planning department staff have been cut since 2009
• Planning authorities’ budgets have diminished in real terms by 42% since 2009
• In 2020 local authorities only spent 0.38% of their total net revenue budgets
• Planning application fees only cover 66% of their processing costs
• There are 91 new and unfunded duties in the Planning (Scotland) Act, which could cost between £12.1m and £59.1m over 10 years
• Over the next 10 to 15 years there will be a demand for an additional 680 to 730 entrants into the sector.
Based on these findings, a tight budget in planning could have a significant impact on town centre regeneration. In particular, the decrease in planning authorities’ budgets can make it difficult to fund the infrastructure improvements required to make town centres liveable, vibrant and diverse. A lack of resources coupled with planning authorities’ extensive list of duties may also lead to authorities having to scale back the scope of their regeneration efforts. This could lead to certain aspects of a project not being addressed, e.g. cultural initiatives.
Local Place Plans (LPPs)
LPPs are an important tool for communities to shape the future of their local areas. RTPI Scotland believe that LPPs could pose a potential barrier to the provision of cultural initiatives locally. We must ensure that culture is embedded in LPPs so that unique cultural characteristics are preserved and placemaking objectives such as sense of community, identity and health and wellbeing are achieved.
Lack of representation in LPPs could also hinder cultural provision locally. Depending on community engagement, in some cases LPPs may not be inclusive or representative of the diverse cultural groups that exist within the community. In turn, resulting in a lack of consideration for the cultural need and values of these groups.
Finally, LPPs could also be viewed as a barrier in regards to the issues mentioned above, regarding lack of resources and perhaps, the lack of expertise within the community. RTPI Scotland has called upon the Scottish Government to dedicate resources for planning authorities to support LPPs, ideally through creating dedicated planning officer roles or through support provided by a national body which can facilitate local links. To support communities to produce LPPs, RTPI Scotland calls upon Scottish Government to establish a national grant scheme for communities as has been established in England to support Neighbourhood Plans.
