This week, Place Studio turns ten years old! We can’t believe a decade has passed since we set up our business here in Bristol. Whilst we had been planning an exciting field trip (and prosecco!) to mark the occasion, we are all still celebrating this happy milestone from home. Appropriately, we are spending some time…
Journal
Enhancing Tree Coverage through a Neighbourhood Plan
As the Woodland Trust points out, trees are critical for the future of the planet and for our own wellbeing, health and happiness. The protection of existing trees alongside an aim to increase tree coverage in the Parish was a core objective of the Cam Neighbourhood Plan, a large village and parish in Stroud District.…
Neighbourhood Planning during the Coronavirus Pandemic – Referendums
Due to the Coronavirus pandemic, all referendums are now cancelled until May 2021. We have worked with a number of Neighbourhood Plans that are now stuck in this limbo period. Although it is frustrating not to proceed to the final hurdle of ‘making’ or adopting the plan with the referendum for the next year, updated…
Neighbourhood Planning Champion
We have a Neighbourhood Planning Champion on our team! Through the Neighbourhood Planning website, Locality facilitates a network of neighbourhood planning experts and ‘champions’. Neighbourhood Planning Champions are people across England who have a wealth of knowledge and experience in neighbourhood planning and neighbourhood development orders. As a result of her broad experience in neighbourhood…
Place Studio Shortlisted for RTPI Award!
We have been shortlisted as Small Planning Consultancy of the year for the Royal Town Planning Institute Awards 2020. The RTPI Awards for Planning Excellence are the longest-running awards in our industry and we are honoured to be shortlisted alongside some excellent small consultancies – tough competition! We won back in 2015 and would be…
Building Better, Building Beautiful: Yes, but not quite!
The report of the government’s Building Better, Building Beautiful Commission is now out and there’s some good news and some bad news. Let’s start with the good news, and hold your breath about that word ‘beauty’ that we Brits are almost embarrassed to use (though we seem happy with ‘ugly’). Rather than starting off the…
Maps, Books and Collaborative Planning
Giving communities a greater voice in all areas of planning is a key theme for Place Studio. More and better community engagement is, in our view, crucial in strategic plan-making as well as development management (through pre-application engagement). It is also central to neighbourhood planning. We have promoted both the principle and practice of genuine…
Neighbourhood Planning and the Revised NPPF
We have been familiarising ourselves with the recently updated National Planning Policy Framework, especially in relation to Neighbourhood Planning. We are pleased to see the importance of Design Quality being reinforced, with the NPPF highlighting that ‘Neighbourhood plans can play an important role in identifying the special qualities of each area and explaining how this…