Place Plans: influencing how your local community is shaped

Last updated: 2 July 2025

The Planning Act Wales 2015 introduced a right for communities to draw up ‘Place Plans’, as a way for them to take part in the planning process in their local areas. The Place Plans process allows people to come together through a community/town council, or a neighbourhood forum, and say what they think the area needs, where new houses, businesses and shops should go and what they should look like. 

A Place Plan is a document that sets out local planning guidance on the use and development of land in local communities. It’s a way to address land use and development issues and concerns at the local level, as well as a way to achieve local aspirations.  

Place Plans add local level detail to Local Development Plans (LDPs) and can be adopted by your local authority as Supplementary Planning Guidance (SPG). In order for a Place Plan to become SPG, the community preparing the Place Plan will need to ensure it is prepared with the input of the local authority. It will also need a strong evidence base and a good level of community involvement. 

Place Plans can be prepared by community and town councils, or community groups (in areas where there are local councils). 

If you wish to prepare a Place Plan, it is crucial that you work closely with your local authority because they can give your eventual plan some status, maybe even legal status. It will be important that your Place Plan fits together with the LDP. If you go off and try to do a Place Plan on your own, it won’t have the influence you want! The involvement and support of your local authority (planners and possibly other officers) will help you to produce a well evidenced plan. 

There are a number of benefits which may help you make a decision on whether or not to prepare a Place Plan: 
 

• It is a way of establishing what the important development issues are in your community and agreeing ways to address those in the future. 

• It enables positive and proactive input into the local planning system, offering you more influence over planning decisions. 

• The evidence and information which underpins your Place Plan can be used to secure funding for identified actions and projects. 

• It is a way of improving the working relationship between you and your local authority (and possibly other service providers). 

• Your Place Plan can be used by your local planning authority when they start their LDP Review. If your Place Plan is adopted as SPG, they will have your bit of the plan already partly drafted!  

Learn more about the Place Plans process on the Planning Aid and Shape My Town websites – see links below. 

Place Plans guidance – Planning Aid Wales 

Place Plans: A Guide for Communities by Planning Aid Wales 

Shape My Town toolkit