Resourcing community planning

One thing is becoming clear within the Localism Agenda - it costs to empower local communities to develop plans that are in line with their own desires for their locality. The Supporting Communities in Neighbourhood Planning programme announced in May this year that £9.5m was available but in relatively small units of up to £7,000 per neighbourhood: http://locality.org.uk/news/launch-neighbourhood-planning-fund/. This is just to pump-prime the neighbourhood planning. But getting the desired development to happen will cost more than that. The process of creating a Community Right to Build order that grants planning permission for community-planning development is more significant as the proposals are more detailed and there is the requirement for another referendum of the local residents. In early June, one parish council in Mid Sussex was granted £54,000 to prepare two such orders, one for 76 homes and the other for a community centre. But this is all resourcing going on the planning process itself - plan making and planning regulation. Yet the funding of the development requires resources and - without any other pots to tap - this will be reliant on private sector interest. In the Sussex case the idea was that 38 affordable homes and 17 self-build plots would be supported by the remaining market housing. Thus is seems that the new planning resources are being directed to communities where there is some market demand to support planning that facilitates new development. It would be interesting to find ways of channelling such funding to support other forms of community planning where the activities are less focussed on market-led development.