Deadline extended for communities to prepare Local Place Plans

The deadline for communities to submit Local Place Plans has now been extended to end of June 2024.

In May 2022, Fife Council invited community groups to think about whether they would like to prepare a Local Place Plan for their community to help shape the new Fife Local Development Plan.

A deadline of the end of January 2024 was originally highlighted for submission of these plans in order to guarantee that they would be in time to fully inform the Local Development Plan. Fife Council has contacted community councils and other community groups to let them know about these new timescales.

The intention of the extended deadline is to maximise the possibility for communities across Fife to feed into the new Local Development Plan while creating their own visions for where they live. The council recognises the work that has already been done to date, and community bodies are welcome to submit their plans at any point before the new deadline.

Local Place Plans are a new type of plan designed to stimulate and encourage debate about the future of a place, enabling communities to focus on their aspirations as they shape their local place. The aim is to make sure that place-based projects and developments are shaped by the needs of local people.

This could mean more about what communities need in their area to live well locally (sometimes known as 20-minute neighbourhoods), town centre revitalisation, community-led regeneration, inclusive growth, local resilience, community wealth building, and local work towards reducing carbon emissions.

Since the start of 2023, Planning Aid Scotland has been running training to help communities in Fife with an interest in preparing a Local Place Plan. The programme is enabled by funding from the Fife Rural Development Fund which is funded by the Scottish Government.

The training has focused on rural areas due to the nature of the funding, but there have been opportunities for community groups not eligible for targeted support to also benefit from the training programme.

Register a Local Place Plan for your community at www.fife.gov.uk/localplaceplans