Planning Officers Place Making with Young Adults

Lancaster City Council are working on the preparation of a new planning framework for South Lancaster, including the creation of a new garden village. The proposals for South Lancaster are significant and represent a once-in-a-generation opportunity to strategically plan for growth to meet the needs of the community for decades to come. For this reason it is important for the City Council, as it prepares this planning framework, seek to engage constructively and proactively with as many people as possible.

This is the opportunity to shape how development will evolve in this area, what it will look like, the type of development which will be delivered and how a sustainable and cohesive community will be shaped. Creating a new planning framework for South Lancaster is not a simple or easy challenge, it requires working with a wide range of people – the local community, infrastructure providers, the development industry and other interested parties to ensure that the wide range of challenges associated with development of this scale can be overcome.

It is for that reason that engagement, consultation and collaboration form a key part of the plan-making, running as a golden thread throughout the whole process from its inception through to the examination of the final plans. Ultimately, if those who are interested in the process cannot or do not engage and help to shape its outcomes, then the final plans for South Lancaster will have not sought to reflect the aspirations of the people who will live, work and visit in the future.

To ensure effective engagement, the Council seeks to talk to as wider section of the community as possible. Reaching some sections of the community is more difficult than others – for instance it is relatively easy to engage with people who have the time to do so. This tends to skew engagement towards an older demographic who have more time to involve themselves in the process of plan-making. Whilst this in itself is a beneficial outcome, it is important that the planning process hears from all sides of the debate and therefore it is critical that meaningful engagement takes place with a wider spectrum, including young people.

Engaging with young people has been historically challenging, planning is often seen as a subject which is not tangible and the beneficial outcomes that engagement provides is not always clear – particularly when thinking in the long term. However, this could not be further from the case. The plan-making process is about making sure that opportunities exist in the future – whether that be access to the housing market, access to jobs and employment or making sure the right infrastructure is in place - planning’s role in mitigating and adapting to Climate Change is also growing. All of which means that the plan-making process is critical not just now but the decisions which are taken will have implications for decades to come.

Therefore young people have a vital role in the plan-making agenda, seeking to understand and reflect their ambitions and visions into how places, buildings and spaces evolve over time. Without their input we simply create places which are not fit for purpose.

The engagement process with young people, which is being led by the University, began on Saturday  28th May with a full-day workshop  at Halton Mill. The workshop focused on range of place-making themes and the principles and components of what makes a good place. To support discussions on the day participants to the event were supported by using a place-making tool (as attached) which set out a range of place-making attributes. The outcomes of the workshop provided a range of potential ambitions which young people would wish to see pursued in South Lancaster and promoted by the Area Action Plan.