We support town and parish councils, community organisations, and residents to navigate the
planning system. Our aim is to help build knowledge and expertise, allowing communities to engage more
effectively with developers and Local Authorities by equipping them with the tools to get the
best out of new development, or even propose their own.
We wanted to share the top five issues we’ve experienced in planning over the last year, and
some of the ways we’re working with communities to offer solutions:
1.Development pressures
Planning policies set out an increase in housing, putting pressure on communities. We will continue to support people to protect the local character of their place – whether through design codes or planning negotiations – and advocate for developments to include affordable housing.
2. Nature and Climate Emergency
There is growing recognition of the importance of ecosystem services. We build nature recovery, biodiversity, and collaboration between landowners into our work. We are grateful to our partner Wild Oxfordshire, which supports Community First on these matters.
3. Design
The local character of a place is important to people and is frequently raised in our Neighbourhood Planning work. Developers often fail to adequately consider local design and so we support communities to develop design codes which lay out how a developer should undertake their project.
4. Affordable Housing Delivery
Across the country, much less affordable housing is delivered than promised, as developers claim that this housing would make their project unfeasible. We work with landowners, Parish and Town Councils, and community land trusts to implement housing schemes directly, led by communities.
5. Timings
Often, community awareness of a planning issue only arises once a decision is already made. By developing Neighbourhood Plans, we can both pre-empt issues by creating guidelines, and raise local skills in the planning process so the community can engage earlier.
We believe that all communities should be able to shape the area they live in. Having a local area equipped with suitable housing, greenspace, and hubs improves everyone’s quality of life, and can help build a ‘sense of community’. We look forward to supporting more communities through Neighbourhood plans, planning advice, and community development projects.