Community Design Statements and Neighbourhood Plans

As part of our support for the Neighbourhood Plan for Colerne, we worked closely with the community to produce a Community Design Statement as an integral part of their Neighbourhood Plan. This was based on thorough character appraisal of the main village, the two other settlements in the parish, and of the broader landscape. The latter was particularly important because a large swathe of the parish is taken up with a Ministry of Defence establishment – an ex-airfield and some barracks – to be released for possible development during the Neighbourhood Plan period.

Place Studio designed and facilitated a ‘Design Day’ to kick-start the work. This involved people from the community getting out and about, annotating maps, filing in forms and taking photos. The Design Day led to some interim ideas of Character Areas for the main village and for the wider landscape. Place Studio worked with the community to then develop detailed analysis and description of the built Character Areas, and then some broad design guidance for future developments. As is often the case, someone from the community had strong graphic design skills, who then made the final document look really superb!

Designing and facilitating activities to involve the community in evidence gathering is a key element of Place Studio’s work. We help communities to do their own evidence collection, building on local knowledge and skills. Through this we aim to produce documents that are locally distinctive and accessible for the local community to use.

The Neighbourhood Plan successfully passed examination and referendum, and was formally 'made' in March 2022.

Read more on the Colerne Parish Council website.