Shropshire Rural Toolkit Project West Midlands Planning Aid

8/8/2019 Shropshire Rural Toolkit Project West Midlands Planning Aid

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Shropshire Rural ProjectReport of Planning Aid West Midland’s involvement in delivering

the Shropshire Council Rural Toolkit Project

September 2010



Planning Aid West Midlands (PAWM) has been keen to extend its work in the rural west of the region. This is to ensure that

communies become more engaged with the planning system, increase their understanding of how their communies actually

funcon, and understand how key public services and possible added benets can impact on their lives and on the places where

they live.

Coincidentally as part of evidence gathering for their Local Development Framework (LDF) process, Shropshire Council stated

a commitment to broadening its knowledge of the many communies which make up the recently created Shropshire Unitary

Authority, whilst increasing community input into the preparaon of LDF Documents.

A decision had already been taken by Shropshire to ulise the Rural Toolkit, rst developed in Devon, to bring together exisng

informaon and to test it on the ground with communies. Discussions led to Shropshire Council agreeing to support the

delivery costs of a PAWM project to engage ‘hard to reach’ communies in the process and in return PAWM commied a

Community Planner to work part me on the project alongside Planning Aid volunteers.

PAWM considers this to be a pioneering approach and sits well with the current localism agenda of the new coalion

Government and can be extended to other rural and urban areas across the country. It helps deliver a ‘boom up’ approach toplanning and service provision that can benet both communies and Local Planning Authories.

The Project has helped to raise the prole of PAWM and improve its engagement with both exisng and future partners.

Mark Walton

Chairman, Planning Aid West Midlands

Foreword



Contents

• Execuve Summary 4

• The Project Team 5

• Project Background and Context 5

• The Shropshire Context 6

• The Nuts and Bolts 8

• Main Events and ‘hard to reach’ Sessions 11

• Input of Planning Aid West Midlands 12

• Overall Outputs, Outcomes and Contact Details 14


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The Shropshire Rural Project sought to test the exisng informaon

base about a sample of communies across Shropshire, put forwardas candidates by the respecve Parish Councils. PAWM was asked

to assist and support ‘hard to reach’ groups in the communies

parcipang in this rst phase of ulising the Rural Toolkit. The

approach would be accessed in terms of its possible applicaon in

other communies in later phases in Shropshire and elsewhere.

The Project involved 12 Parishes from across Shropshire and local

residents in those parishes, all selected by invitaon. The Council

produced a very detailed evidence base for each of the Parishes

circulated to parcipants before a main event lasng up to 3 hours.

At these events the Rural Toolkit was used to test the evidence and

percepons of local residents about their community against

8 headline statements.

PAWM worked with the Council on the Project and engaged with

various ‘hard to reach’ groups in a number of communies.

This report sets out the background to the Project and work on it,

and looks at outcomes and lessons to learn.

Execuve Summary

The use of the Rural Toolkit can be resource hungry but was seen

as very valuable to ensure that the evidence gathered aboutcommunies as sustainable places is robust to support both planning

policy and other community issues including Parish Plans. Careful

management of the project and schedule was essenal and resulted

in a successful main session.

Planning Aid’s involvement with ‘hard to reach’ groups involved a

longer mescale in terms of contact and undertaking the actual

events, and meant that some of the communies later in the

programme could not be covered.

The general feedback from parcipants at all the sessions was very

posive and helped community cohesion. The use of the Rural

Toolkit meets many of the objecves of the new Localism agenda

and is capable of rolling out to other communies both rural andurban.

Capacity building for communies to carry out their own similar

exercise would be necessary and this oers future opportunies for

Planning Aid.



For Shropshire Council Project

Team Members

Jake Berriman - Head of Strategy and Policy

Samantha Hine - Head of Community Working

Lois Dale - Principal Rural Policy Ocer

Juliet Lane - Informaon and Research Manager

Sarah Garlick - Research Assistant – Strategy and Policy

And... Community Regeneraon Ocers – Frances Hall, Vicky Turner,

Corrie Davies, Debbie Marais, Tracy Johnson, Mathew Mead,

Sue Thomas, Rachel Johnson.

Planning Aid West Midlands (PAWM) would like to thank sta at

RTPI Headquarters and the Naonal Planning Aid unit for their help

in seng up and delivering this project, as well as Gill Wilson –

Administrator PAWM for her administrave support.

Most importantly we want to thank the Planning Aid volunteers who

supported the major events, and the individual communies who

took part.

For Planning Aid West Midlands Project

Team Members

Jon Lord - Regional Manager

Richard Cobb - Community Planner

Volunteers:Dawn Adams, Rhian Davi, Fiona Fuller, John Gordon, Emma Green,

Les Greenwood, Rhian Harris, Aef Ishaq, Charloe Jones,

David Jones, Philip Jones, Sarah Jones, Janet Rowley, Robyn Skerra,

Rebecca Smith, Chrisna Welzel.

Other Helpers:Angela Cobb, and many local residents and group organisers in the

Parishes concerned.

The Project Team

Project Backgroundand Context

This Report reviews the involvement of Planning Aid West Midlands

(PAWM) in the Shropshire Rural Toolkit Project which ran from February

to July 2010. The use of the Rural Toolkit in communies was a pilotproject both for PAWM and Shropshire Council and the outcome of

the Project and lessons learnt will be used to inuence the delivery of

subsequent phases, both in other rural areas and in market towns.

Consequently this Report assesses the outcomes of the project

against key objecves, and highlights some key lessons learnt

during the project.

The following secons outline the management and

administraon of the project, its achievements with case studies,

the feedback from beneciaries and nally recommendaons.

Report by Planning Aid West Midlands - Shropshire Rural Toolkit Project 2010 5

Le: The Shropshire Project Team: Back Row: Richard Cobb (PAWM Community

Planner), Lois Dale (Shropshire Council), Councillor Gwilym Butler (Cabinet Member

for Community Working at Shropshire Council), Louise Rixham (Commission for Rural

Communies), Front Row: Jon Lord (PAWM Manager) & Ally Rood (Commission for

Rural Communies).



Local Place Shaping

Shropshire Council has proposed a radical diversion from thetradional top down approach in local government, especially

in terms of housing and planning policy. The Council aims to be

responsive to local needs to which this Rural Project is seen as

an important element, aligning well with the new Government’s

localism agenda – giving local people and communies far more

ability to determine the shape of the places in which they live.

The proposed direcon in planning policy is to work with

communies to idenfy which selements or groups of

selements have the potenal to be stronger social, economic

and environmentally sustainable communies, to allow a mix of

local needs and enabling development in these places. They may

be selements that act as a Local Centre, or a smaller Community

Hub. They can also comprise a number of linked selements in a“Community Cluster”. The intenon is to facilitate them becoming

more sustainable as places that meet local needs and provide a basic

level of services and facilies.

Local Development Framework

Within the new Local Development Framework, the Council has

prepared a Core Strategy which sets the overall strategic vision for

development in the county up unl 2026. This vision is supported

by a set of strategic objecves and core policies which together will

help achieve this vision. The Core Strategy has been through several

stages of public consultaon prior to its submission to the Secretary

of State at the end of July 2010.

Amongst the Core Strategy objecves, the Council seeks to

re-balance rural parts of the county, to strengthen the rural economy

and rural communies and help make villages more sustainable

whilst protecng the environment. This Rural Project was designed

parcularly to improve the evidence base to support that

core strategy, and to assist rural communies in developing and

understanding of what makes a sustainable place.

Shropshire is a predominantly rural county and has a populaon

of just less than 300,000 at a density of around 0.91 persons perhectare. The main centres of populaon are Shrewsbury, as the

County town, and Telford.

About one third of Shropshire is upland, mostly to the south

and west, and 80,817 hectares of the South Shropshire hills are

designated as an Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty and contain

a variety of landscapes, varying from arable farming to remote

moorland and extensive woodlands. This includes 491 hectares in

Telford and Wrekin.

About 55% of the County’s populaon live in the main selements

of Bishop’s Castle Bridgnorth, Broseley, Church Streon, Cleobury

Mormer, Craven Arms, Ellesmere, Ludlow, Market Drayton, Much

Wenlock, Oswestry, Shifnal, Shrewsbury, Wem and Whitchurch.However, these selements only cover about 2% of the county’s

land area. Shrewsbury has a populaon of about 66,400.

The former 5 District Councils within Shropshire were unied in 2009

as one county-wide local authority, excluding Telford and Wrekin,

which was already a separate unitary authority.

The parish remains an important sub-division and er of local

government in both unitary authority areas of Shropshire.There are

over 160 Parish Councils across Shropshire itself as well as a number

of Town Councils, including Shrewsbury itself.

As part of becoming a unitary authority, the Council has set upLocal Joint Commiees (LJCs). There are 28 Local Joint Commiees

currently in place, each covering a number of parishes, with the aim

of enabling people across Shropshire to get more involved in the

decision making of Shropshire Council. Each LJC meets four mes a

year and gives people a chance to meet with their local councillors

and to raise issues of concern about services or problems within

their communies.

LJCs are legally constuted, decision-making commiees, and

comprise of local Shropshire councillors together with

representaves from each of the town and parish councils

within the area. They act as a decision maker with regard

to the local delivery of a range of services. They are able

to determine expenditure of a delegated budget and topriorise resource allocaon in their area. The LJCs act as

a formal consultaon mechanism for Shropshire Council,

over and above that provided by local parish and

town councils.

The Shropshire Context


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Planning Aid Involvement

From late 2008, because of loss of a dedicated rural CommunityPlanner, PAWM acvies slowed down in the areas previously

covered by the Rural Community Planning Project, in parcular in

the rural western fringe of the region – Herefordshire, Shropshire

and some parts of Staordshire.

This deciency was recognised by the PAWM’s Regional Advisory

Panel and a key objecve of supporng community involvement in

the rural western fringe of the region was included in the PAWM

Business Plan for 2009/10.

The decision by PAWM to focus on Shropshire was jused as the

mahority of the county is sited within the WM Rural Regeneraon

Zone which contain signicant number of deprived communies.

Shropshire Council’s Interim Statement of Community Involvement

published in June 2008, saw PAWM being used as a partner

and facilitator for ongoing engagement, and recognised the

importance of engaging ‘‘hard to reach’’ groups who are usually

underrepresented through tradional more formal methods.

In summer 2009, discussions commenced with Shropshire Council

on idenfying opportunies for PAWM to support community

involvement in the producon of forthcoming LDF documents.

These discussions resulted in a role being idened for PAWM to

support proposals to engage communies through the LJCs.

The Project Brief The purpose of the project for PAWM was inially to help support

Shropshire Council engage with rural communies using the

Rural Toolkit in the main events, and then to work with ‘‘hard to

reach’’ groups in the communies parcularly those who were

located in the most deprived LJC areas. The intenon was to test

out percepons they had about their area based upon the main

informaon and process developed by the Council in the main Rural

Toolkit events. This was to assist in the idencaon of locaons

for future development and idenfy a ‘shopping list’ of potenal

community benets which could be delivered or would be sort on

the back of development.

Shropshire Council agreed to oer nancial support to PAWM to

help cover project delivery costs relang to event costs. While theCouncil kindly oered to provide a physical oce ‘base’ at their

Shirehall oces in Shrewsbury, this was not found to be necessary as

many of the events took place in remote rural areas, some distance

from Shirehall.

The Rural ToolkitIn the past both housing and planning policies have tended to focus

future development only on key selements where services and

facilies were already concentrated. Shropshire Council has recognised

that to encourage a more sustainable approach and to help sustain

more exisng rural communies, it is necessary to start to recognise

how communies work in reality.

Supported by the Commission for Rural Communies, the Rural

Toolkit, developed by Roger Tym and Partners with Rural Innovaon

in conjuncon with work by the Devon Local Strategic Partnership

(LSP), seeks to provide a robust framework to help public authories,

professionals and local communies reach a balanced view on the

present and future sustainability of their communies.

The framework focuses on 8 headline statements, which are intended

to relate to successful and sustainable communies, based on those

agreed under the Bristol Accord (UK Presidency EU Ministerial Informal

on Sustainable Communies, ODPM., 2005), and are used to test

communies against an exisng evidence base about their community.

Looking at individual communies in more detail combining exisng

informaon with detailed interrogaon of local inhabitants, the Toolkitseeks to nd out how thriving and acve the community is; whether it

is well run and well represented; if it is well connected, well served and

well designed; and how environmentally sensive.The methodology

is designed to be easily applicable as well as having the ability to be

replicated and monitored.

The Toolkit allows for a consistent approach across a wide range

of communies from small scaered hamlets in the countryside to

market towns. It builds a robust evidence base across a range of spaal

levels from Local Development Framework and LSP purposes, as well

as potenally for village planning at a community level.

For more informaon about the Toolkit, go to

www.ruraltoolkit.org.uk

Project Objecve

Using the Rural Toolkit, this Project aimed to nd out commonalies

and dierences and the various places that a wide range of people look

to in their everyday lives in Parishes across Shropshire. The result was

to be a snapshot of how people see their area at the moment, and a

beer quality evidence base about their area.

This also aimed to help parish councils in parish planning and

Shropshire Council in making decisions about acvies, services,

facilies and infrastructure that are beer informed

by local views, including about whichcommunity benets are important

to them now and in

the future.



Inving Parcipants

Although it was ancipated that a number of Parish Councilmembers would aend each event, eorts were made to try to

include others, somemes successfully, especially teenagers and

younger parents. Aendees were generally restricted to those living

within the Parish. The target number of parcipants was 30 for each

main session, based on 3 tables per at each main event, although

that number was somemes dicult to achieve.

Parcipants were chosen on a ‘rst come-rst served’ basis, with a

general cut-o date around 14 days before the event. Parish Clerks

and Chairmen helped to recruit more local residents if numbers

appeared to be falling too short. Where less than 12 parcipants

were likely to be aending, as in one case, the event was cancelled.

Management and MonitoringRural Innovaon, who developed the Rural Toolkit were engaged by

the Council as a crical friend. A small Project Steering Group was

set up of key planners, Community Working Team sta and Planning

Aid sta, to review the sessions, logiscs and toolkit quesons etc, as

well as monitoring progress on engaging ‘hard to reach’ groups.

A Communicaon Plan was devised by the Council to try to get the

message out about each event. The Council’s event coordinator

produced a ‘Lessons Learnt’ report aer each event to examine all

aspects and build on what had gone well or wrong.

At each event all parcipants were asked to complete a simplequesonnaire (the ‘Snowball Evaluaon’) at the end to say what they

felt was good or bad or what they would change.

Introducon

The project was led by Shropshire Council, using combined resourcesfrom Planning and Community Working Teams, in consultaon with

Parish Councils, and assisted by Planning Aid West Midlands. The

following describe the main stages.

Selecon of Parishes

A preliminary leer was sent from Shropshire Council to all Parish

Councils, copied to elected Members and all relevant sta, inving

expressions of interest in becoming involved in the project in phases.

There was a set deadline for seeking to be in Phase 1A, and selecon

was also based on Parishes in South, Centre and North of the County

and across a spread of LJC areas.

Twelve Parishes came forward to t into the mescale for Phase 1Afrom February to July 2010, and a provisional metable arranged

to try to space out events across those 5 months, having regard

to holiday periods etc, although somemes sessions were closer

together than desirable.

Preliminary Training

Training and pracce for sta to the use of the rural toolkit and

consider the likely format for sessions was iniated by Shropshire

Council. This comprised a day workshop involving some elected

members with around 40 members of sta and Planning Aid

representaves in January 2010.

A full scale exercise was carried out with each parcipant role

playing villagers and other stakeholders, and being taken through the

standard Rural Toolkit Headline Statements and subsidiary quesons,

leading to composion of a colour wheel. Feedback on lessons learnt

went forward into the Project proper, and were further modied as

the sessions ran through.

For Planning Aid volunteers, a special facilitaon training

day event was organised at Telford in March 2010.

The nuts and bolts of the project



Pre Event Brieng

Before each event key players including Facilitators, CROs and

Ward Members were taken through the programme in a session at

Shirehall or in Community Working Team oces a few days before

the main event.

Intending parcipants were allocated to one of three tables based

on their ages, background and place of living in the community to

achieve a range and mix.

Meeng and Greeng

Parcipants were checked against the ‘invitaon’ list, given a

sck-on lapel badge with their name, and allocated to a table which

was colour coded. They were asked to sign in on a pre prepared list

and complete the diversity charts with smiley face sck-on dots.

They were then oered tea/coee and light refreshments before

proceedings began.

Preparaon of Evidence Base

The inial extensive evidence base was prepared by the Informaon

team in the Planning Policy Secon, based on census and other

data sources as well as Parish Plans and other locally produced

documents. This was circulated to other Council ocers and the

Parish Council and the Ward Councillor for checking, before being

sent out to those local residents in each community who had

indicated that they wanted to take up the invitaon and parcipate.

A large aerial photograph of the area, together with details

OS-based plans of the community were prepared for display around

the room at the main session and separate sessions with ‘hard to

reach’ groups. These were then given to the Parish Council for use in

further community-led planning acvity.

Publicity

Apart from inial publicity of the Project in local newspapers

and Radio Shropshire as well as Council newsleers etc, specic

publicity in each community was carried out using Parish Magazines/

newsleers/noce boards, followed up by a yer put round

local venues and/or other promoon by the local Community

Regeneraon Ocer. Parish Clerks and Chairs also helped publicity.

Venue arrangementsThe Council agreed with Parish Clerks on venues, dates and publicity

for the main Toolkit Events. The venues were usually the Village or

Memorial Hall in one of the main selements in the Parish. Catering

was needed for each event varying from tea/coee/ cake to cold

supper, dependent on ming and days. Use was made of local

caterers – WI, village pub, or specialist local caterer.

Most main events were chosen by Parish Councils to be on weekday

evenings, starng somemes at 6.00pm, but mostly at 7.00 pm.

Occasional events were held on Saturday mornings. Set up of tables,

chairs, maps, and ip charts etc required the back up team to be

present at least one hour before the start.

PersonnelApart from the compère, local Elected Council Member and

catering sta, the minimum back up sta needed were ‘meetersand greeters’, roving observers, runners, facilitators, and scribes.

Planning Aid volunteers helped with meeng and greeng and

acted as scribes, and the PAWM Community Planner aached to the

Project was a facilitator on one table.

Addionally in aendance was the Community Regeneraon

Ocer for the LJC area. While policy planners sat at each table to

assist in parcular inquiries, it was not intended to be focussed on

planning issues. There were also dierent observers each me. This

included the porolio holder, Councillor Gwilym Butler, and other

external observers such as the Rural Specialist from Telford and

Wrekin.


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Community benets

During the interval, parcipants were asked to complete four chartsrelang to Community Benets. They were given 12 scky dots and

asked to ‘vote’ on what community benets they wanted to retain

or see in their community to maintain or enhance its sustainability.

These ranged across a variety of acvies, infrastructure, services

and facilies.

Colour WheelThe Rural Toolkit focuses responses to the 8 Headline statements

into compleng a colour ‘wheel’ which illustrates, via use of dierent

colours, how far parcipants agree or disagree with how their

community matches against each statement. Those were completed

by the facilitator/ scribe on each table as the session progressed.

At the end of the session, as part of the summing up, the facilitator

gave the results from his/her table, having completed the colour

wheel for that table, adding to a ‘collecve’ Colour Wheel for the

whole room. It was not possible always to reach a consensus view on

a subject area at each table and in that case split colours were used.

The comparison of results at the end may show how much disparity

of percepon there is in the community. Each table is also asked to

jusfy its choice of colour and parcular issues that may have arisen

are noted for possible future acon.

Parcipant Feedback QuesonnaireSpecic maers outside of the subject maer of the Toolkit which

arose during the session were recorded on a separate ip ‘parking

lot’ chart for subsequent acon by the Council. At the end of the

session, parcipants were asked to complete a simple quesonnaire

(The ‘Snowball Evaluaon’) to say what they liked and disliked about

the session and how it could be improved.

Post event

Aer each event the feedback quesonnaires were analysed by the

Council and a summary produced and a Learning Points report was

compiled to see if anything needed improvement for later events.

A leer of thanks was sent by the Council to all parcipants with a

summary of the quesonnaire feedback. Later when the full resultsfrom the session had been transcribed, they were circulated back to

the community via the Parish Council in readiness for follow up by

the Community Working Team.

Timetable

An example of a metable is included below. The key points of which are:

• The need for a competent compère to keep the schedule on

track, as well as lightening proceedings.

• Local elected Member and Parish Council Chair to be able to

give a welcome and to conclude proceedings

• Keeping to the ght me schedule

Time Slot Acvity Lead

9.30 - 10.30am Registraon and refreshments;

Inclusion and diversity monitoringchart collaon

Lois Dale,

Vicky Turner,Planning Aid

10.00 - 10.02am H&S and Housekeeping Lois Dale

10.02 - 10.06am Welcome to the event Lois Dale,Councillor TinaWoodward

10.06 - 10-14am The planning context Jake Berriman

10.14 - 10-16am Planning Aid Context: workingwith hard to reach groups

Richard Cobb

10.16 - 10.20am The community tesng event:how it will work

10.20 - 10.25am Ice breaker Lois Dale

10.25 - 11.15 am Table discussions part one Tom Breell,Richard Cobb,

Vicky Turner

11.15 - 11.30am Refreshment break; communitybenets matrix collaon; grawall opportunity

All,Kerry Rogers,Lois Dale

11.30 - 12.15pm Table discussions part two Tom Breell,Richard Cobb,Vicky Turner

12.15 - 12.35pm Collecve Group; discussionsaround a single colour wheel forthe community

Lois Dale,Facilitators

12.35 - 1.00pm Evaluaon and Thank You;community benets matrixcompleon; gra wall nalopportunity; lunch

Lois Dale,Councillor TinaWoodward,All

1.00pm Finish All

The SessionFacilitators introduced themselves with

their scribes, and then explained what the

process was. No use was made directly of

the previously circulated evidence base,

but the Facilitator guided the parcipants

through the headline statements and led

discussion on the various points thereunder.

PAWM volunteers took a note of all

comments made to be submied to the

Council at the end of the session. Half the

Headline Statements were completed beforethe interval, the rest aerwards.

Compleng the colour wheel and the completed colour wheel



Phase 1A – Main Events and

‘hard to reach’ Sessions 2010

Main Event Date and start

me

Parish Main Event

Parcipants

‘Hard to reach’ groups

contacted

‘Hard to reach’

Parcipants

Saturday 27 February

9.30 amClun and Chapel LawnSouth of Bishops Castle

20 Mothers and ToddlersYoung Farmers

Local businessesElderly Residents

1317922

Thursday 18 March

6.00pmCaynham

Around Clee Hill between

Cleobury Mormer and Ludlow

19 No Interest despite aempts

at contact

Tuesday 13 April

6.00pm

Kinnerley

North West of Shrewsburynear Oswestry

19 Youth Clubs x 2

Mothers and ToddlersParents and TeachersLocal Businesses

12

6625

Saturday 17 April

10.00amAlveley and Romsley

Between Bridgnorth andKidderminster

11 Elderly Residents

General Drop-in and Teenagers

1834

Thursday 13 May

6.00pmCockshu cum Peon

North of Shrewsbury nearEllesmere

18 Parents and Teachers 6

Thursday 20 May

6.00pmCondover

Between Shrewsbury and

Church Streon

21 Disabled Young People 15

Thursday 27 May

6.00pmLydbury North

Near Bishop’s Castle29 High numbers -

No Interest from other groups

Wednesday 16 June

7.00pmLoppingtonNorth of Shrewsbury Near Wem

19 No Time remaining to make contact

Tuesday 29 June 7.00pm Great Hanwood and Longden(two parishes)Just to the south west of Shrewsbury

2814 per parish,

4 tables

No Time remaining to make contact

Saturday 3 July 10.00am Worthen with Shelve

South west of Shrewsbury near

Minsterley

15 No Time remaining to make contact

Thursday 29 July

6.00pmFordJust west of Shrewsbury

23 Not Regeneraon Zone



The Engagement Process

The main Council-run Toolkit Event sought to engage with a widerange of local residents from each community including outer

hamlets etc, and across age groups. Only aer those events, and

assessing whether there had been a good range of parcipants, was

it possible to consider which other elements of the community were

absent and needed to be reached to widen the range of views.

Before each main event the PAWM Community Planner met with

the Council’s Community Regeneraon Ocer for that area in the up

and coming Parish concerned, toured the area to beer understand

its makeup, and to discuss possible ‘hard to reach’ groups known to

the CRO, with likely contacts. Addional informaon was obtained

about likely groups, their contact details and leaders from local

Parish Magazines, Village Newsleers and web sites, as well as

village noce boards and Village Halls.

Based on the expectaon that few of those groups or leaders had

any knowledge of the main Toolkit event, its purpose and format, it

was then necessary for the Community Planner to brief the contact

group leader. This was to explain it – ideally by e-mail – and then to

meet with that person to try to secure their agreement to parcipate

and to discuss the logiscs. In most cases it was considered very

dicult to try to arrange a special meeng of the group to go

through an adapted Rural Toolkit exercise. The alternave was to

latch on to another regular meeng of that group and hopefully be

able to use a much shortened window to engage with them.

The lead-in me to such events became protracted because of

the need to engage the contact group leaders, and then to t intoregular sessions, which somemes occurred only once per month,

and then they occasionally already had other business/speakers

at their next meeng. Holidays also intervened, and in some cases

there was lile or no interest on parcipang, or the main event was

considered to be adequate without need to follow up.

Stang and Volunteers

The Project was supervised by the Regional Manager, and run on aday to day basis by a salaried Community Planner working 2/3 days

per week over the period of the project.

PAWM has a reserve of over 100 volunteers made up of fully

qualied and licenate planners. All volunteers were contacted

to ascertain whether they wanted to assist on this Rural Project.

Volunteers were invited to aend a Facilitaon Training Day in

Telford in March 2010 as preparaon.

PAWM’s role was to provide support for the main toolkit events,

in terms of meeng and greeng, seng up and clearing up

aerwards, and acng as scribes for each table. Ideally four

volunteers were needed for each event, although the minimum

necessary was three.

As volunteers give of their me freely, and most are in full me

employment, securing the necessary volunteers for each main event

involved much work by the Project Community Planner. Occasionally

the services of three volunteers could not be secured and addional

help had to be recruited at the last minute.

The Community Planner acted as a Facilitator on one table, with the

Council providing two others. Planning Aid England’s Chief Planner,

Sue Manns, aended one event as an observer, and the Regional

Manager, Jon Lord, aended another.

Engaging ‘hard to reach’ groups

Idenfying ‘hard to reach’ groups for PAWM was largely focussed on

the following –

• Teenagers • Migrant groups

• Business community • Young parents

• Elderly people • Young working families

• Single Parents • People working long hours

• People living in remote • People with disabilies

rural communies • Gypsy and Travellers

• BMEs

The selecon of likely candidate ‘hard to reach’ groups for PAWM

would depend on the parcular characteriscs and demographics of the Parish concerned.

Shropshire has a relavely small BME populaon, with no signicant

concentraon in any area, and parcularly not so in the 12 parishes

in Phase 1A.

Input of Planning Aid West Midlands



Because of the ght mescale and the other issues above, itoen took up to 2 months from the date of the main Council run

event to meet with ‘hard to reach’ groups, and there was oen an

overlapping of events between communies. Towards the end of the

Project programme, it became impossible to iniate contacts before

the period for Phase 1A expired. Having a realisc mescale and

adequate resources is crical for pursuing a representave range of

‘hard to reach’ groups.

Most already arranged acvies for ‘hard to reach’ groups were

scheduled to last a regular me – one or two hours at most - and

most oen with another acvity included – such as games or a meal.

Engaging young people would also normally involve joining in with

a youth club meeng, where the parcipants would clearly want to

be doing other acvies, and they would generally have an aenon

span of only half an hour at most.

In most communies, PAWM sessions were concentrated on

teenagers, young parents and older people, and in one community

with severely disabled young people.

Headline Statement - Sustainable Communies are: Scale 1-5

A: Acve with a strong sense of community

Sustainable communies are acve places where there are a range of events, clubs and sociees (many/all of which are run

by the local community). People living in sustainable communies idenfy with their place and believe that everyone in thecommunity is important. They communicate eecvely, and look out for and aer one another, helping each to feel valued andkeep safe.

B: Well run and well representedSustainable communies are well run with a combinaon of strong formal governance and informal structure and

commiees. They maintain eecve relaonships with local councils and service providers and make good use of their electedrepresentaves.

C: Well connected in terms of low carbon transport and ICT

Sustainable communies benet from transport services and communicaons which minimise carbon consumpon whilst linkingpeople to jobs, schools, health and other services.

D: Well served in terms of facilies and services

Sustainable communies benet from public, private, community and voluntary services that are appropriate to peoples needsand accessible to all.

E: Care for their environment and live within its limits

Sustainable communies care for and manage their environment, they play their part in tackling global climate change and livewithin environmental limits

F: Well designed with appropriate and aordable housing

Sustainable communies are well designed and aracve with good quality buildings and public spaces. It provides sucient

decent homes to meet the needs of a range of household sizes, ages and incomes.

G: Support local businesses and provide opportunies for local employment

Sustainable communies have a successful local economy which is diverse and provides a range of employment and businessopportunies

H: Fair and inclusive for everyone

Sustainable communies are fair for everyone, including those from other communies, who use its facilies and services


Scale

Very poor Very good

1 2 3 4 5

Adaptaon of Rural Toolkit Exercise

The main Council run sessions tended to last 2½ to 3 hours of closelydetailed discussion around generally 3 tables and based on a very

structured programme. It was felt (and proven) that dealing with

dierent ‘hard to reach’ groups had to be more exible. There

would be no opportunies to send out invitaons or the database

of background informaon. The group leader/organiser was given a

brieng, and asked to publicise the PAWM session.

It was necessary to retain the 8 basic Headline Statements from

the Rural Toolkit, these were displayed on a ip chart either alone

or with sub-quesons, and used to guide a general discussion. All

comments made were recorded either on the ipchart or separately

for transcribing subsequently by the Community Planner into a

feedback report on each event. This was submied later to the

Council with the results of the Community Benets charts, diversity

check, aendance sheets, and a compilaon of the scores against

the Headline Statements.

As well as asking parcipants to ‘vote’ aerwards on the

Community Benet Charts, most groups were also asked to suggest

one benet that they felt their community should have subject to

reasonable cost and expectaon. A copy of the adapted version is

included below.



Some scepcism remained that idened problems or issues wouldnot be fed back to relevant departments or agencies or result in any

acons by the Council; however Shropshire Council have conrmed

that mechanisms were being put in place to ensure that these would

be forwarded and acted upon.

The Rural Toolkit headline statements and full exercise impose a

fairly rigid format that was not possible to transpose directly for use

in smaller ‘hard to reach’ groups. Making it simpler and friendlier

was essenal to engage those groups, and it was also necessary

to ensure that group leaders and contacts understood and were

themselves ready to be engaged. The sub-quesons under the

Headline Statements were rened as the Project progressed, but sll

need further renement to be made more meaningful and relevant

under some of the headings.

Idenfying and contacng ‘hard to reach’ groups was somemes

dicult, and acve events oen took many weeks to take shape

and happen. Despite outreach work undertaken with ‘hard to reach’

groups, the mescale proved insucient in some cases to organise

acvies, such as in Caynham Parish.

Whilst we appreciate the very ght metable for producing

Shropshire’s LDF, a consultaon metable needs to be established

which allows sucient ‘lead in me’ to raise the prole of

the consultaon including its aims and objecves to develop

relaonships with, and the capacity of communies, to become

involved.

However, it has to be accepted that not all communies will want

to play an acve role and this needs to be respected provided they

have been oered adequate opportunies to become involved.

General overview

The Project was well programmed and managed overall by theCouncil and its team, although the mescale was perhaps too

ambious. The compilaon of the basic evidence for the main event

was extremely detailed and resource hungry and the subsequent

write up of results from events became also me-consuming.

The main Rural Toolkit event itself depended on a ght, but

thorough programme and on a key individual person as compere

able to both ‘break the ice’ and lead parcipants through the

schedule to nish on me – generally they did.

Midway through the Project it started to run alongside the evolving

Local Development Framework, parcularly the publicaon and a

parallel consultaon exercise with inial suggested housing land

sites in communies across the County (SamDEV). As such there wasa danger of the two maers becoming confused or overlapping.

It was necessary to make the purpose of the Rural Toolkit exercise

clear. It needed to be seen as part of an informaon gathering

exercise for the Council, to help preparaon or review of a Parish

Plan, and help the Council judge the level of sustainability of a

community and whether it was a ‘hub’ or ‘cluster’ which might be

suitable for more development.

The general feedback aer both the main events and sessions

with ‘hard to reach’ groups was very posive and was seen by the

majority of parcipants to be a way that the community could learn

more about itself, meet other people that they did not know, andshare there views with Shropshire Council.

Overall Outputs and Outcomes



Achievements

The Rural Toolkit main exercise engages well with parcipants,although many of those would already parcipate more fully in

community maers – Parish Councillors and other leaders in the

community.

Seen as a way to help the community arm a snapshot picture of

itself on that day it generally achieved its goal. Idenfying more

specic items of concern was somemes achieved, and generally

community cohesion was an important product/outcome of the

exercise as it helped to bring communies together.

Importantly the exercise was seen by some Parish Councils as a good

basis on which to build a Parish Plan or review an exisng one and

an exercise to be repeated more regularly in areas.

It is seen as a tool with in a wider process of meaningful engagement

with communies to build a boom of approach to planning, what

Shropshire is doing chimes very well with the new localism agenda

both within Shropshire Council and the Government.

Lessons to learnThe Rural Toolkit is a robust tool that can be applied with consistency

across wider areas both rural – and with adaptaon also to larger

selements such as market towns and perhaps communies within

much larger urban areas.

Careful consideraon needs to be given when aempng to linkdirectly to an LDF process as parcipants may feel that answers given

may lead to them gaining more or less development dependent on

their aspiraons.

Vong on community benets was a very useful adjunct, but in

an era of reducing resources, it is important that aspiraons are

tempered by reality as to achievement.

Local Joint Commiees are an important bridge between the

wider community especially in Shropshire, which is largely sparsely

populated and rural in character. The results of the Project will

need to feed back not only into Parish Councils but also into LJCs

and perhaps inuence their decisions. The Council as a whole is

developing mechanisms to ensure that idened problems areaddressed.


It is clearly important to gain feedback on the progress of the Project

as it evolves, and the use of a simple quesonnaire to parcipantsgoes some way towards seeing what the process has added to

community understanding, although it may need to be developed

further to more clearly show added value.

Capacity Building

PAWM also seeks to build capacity in local communies where

there is a need for them to develop skill or competence in engaging

with the planning process or other maers relang to community

development. This is parcularly the case where communies

are expected to have a greater say in shaping their area under the

evolving localism agenda.

The Rural Project can be resource hungry, but nevertheless thecommunies involved in the process clearly felt it important

that they should have their say, and that their views should be

given greater weight in decision making. Sustained involvement

of communies in subsequent LDF preparaon as well as Parish

Plan preparaon, especially where they involve more detailed and

technical issues, will require further capacity building, which PAWM

can assist, with others.

Contact details for further informaon on the

Shropshire Toolkit Experience:

Lois Dale, Principal Rural Policy Ocer, Shropshire [email protected]; telephone 01743 255667.

Rob Hindle, Rural Innovaon

[email protected]; telephone 01772 786664.



Planning Aid England is operated through nine oces including the

West Midlands. There is also Planning Aid for London, Planning Aidfor Scotland and Planning Aid Wales, where the service is delivered

independently.

All Planning Aid services are aimed largely at individuals and groups

who cannot aord to pay for professional help. Eligibility criteria may

vary slightly between each service.

Planning Aid West Midlands oer planning advice and Community

Planning acvies to people living in Herefordshire, Worcestershire,

Shropshire, Staordshire, Warwickshire, and the West Midlands

conurbaon.

Our dedicated Community Planners will help you understand the

planning system and inuence what happens in your area. Our

Community Planning programme helps groups and individuals by:

• Providing informaon and training on the planning system

• Advising and assisng groups to play a part in the development

of plans and policies at naonal, regional and local level

• Helping communies develop their own strategies for their

own area

• Organising educaonal projects for all age groups

• Involving trained volunteers in helping communies Planning Aid West Midlands

1st Floor, Grin House,

18 Ludgate Hill,

BirminghamB3 1DW

Tel: 0121 236 8890

Email: [email protected]

Planning Aid England

6th Floor Newater House,

11 Newhall Street,

Birmingham,

B3 3NY

Tel : 0121 214 2900

Email: [email protected]

www.rtpi.org.uk/planningaid