Neighbourhood planning: influencing how your local community is shaped
Want to find your area’s neighbourhood plan, or even start your own? This guide explains the process.
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Last updated: 2 July 2025
What is neighbourhood planning?
Neighbourhood planning was introduced by the Localism Act in 2011 and is important as it enables communities to shape the future of their local areas.
It is a way for communities to get involved in the future development of the areas where they live by producing a neighbourhood plan. It empowers communities to make planning policies that will guide development in their local area (the ‘neighbourhood area’). A neighbourhood plan is optional, so there is no requirement or obligation to produce one.
Who takes the lead?
In a town or parish, the town or parish council has lead responsibility for neighbourhood planning. In unparished areas a ‘neighbourhood forum’ may be formed by the local community, which needs to be agreed by the local planning authority (LPA).
What are the benefits?
Neighbourhood planning can have lots of benefits for communities. Neighbourhood plan policies can influence the location and type of new housing and can promote the designation and protection of local green space and other areas important for nature. Policies can also help to make new developments more wildlife-friendly, for example by requiring new homes to include Swift bricks and Hedgehog highways.
There is no requirement for neighbourhood plans to propose housing numbers or allocate sites for development. However, if they choose to do so they cannot propose fewer homes than are allocated in their local plans (but they can propose more).
Communities that engage in neighbourhood planning are engaging in the wider planning system and this tends to lead to more involvement in the planning decisions of the LPA. This in turn can lead to many opportunities to protect and enhance nature and the environment.
What is the neighbourhood planning process?
There are several stages to producing a neighbourhood plan, beginning with the designation of a neighbourhood area. The work of scoping, consulting upon and preparing a draft neighbourhood plan then begins. This can be a lengthy process but will vary depending on the size of your area and the number and complexity of the planning issues being addressed. If you would like to learn more, detailed guidance is available on the Locality website. Grant funding is also available for communities to use for the plan-making process.
A draft neighbourhood plan is then subject to an examination and finally a local referendum before it is ‘made’. If more than 50% of voters support the plan, then the LPA must bring it into force. Once ‘made’, the neighbourhood plan forms part of the statutory development plan. This is significant because it means that it must be considered, alongside the local plan, in the determination of all planning applications.
In some limited cases, where a neighbourhood plan is likely to have significant environmental effects, it may require a Strategic Environmental Assessment.
The neighbourhood planning system also includes other planning tools for communities to use for the benefit of their local area, such as neighbourhood development orders, community right to build orders and the listing of community assets. You can read more about these tools on the myCommunity website using the ‘Search my Community’ function.