For residents to produce their own Area Plan for their neighbourhood is a major advantage in increasing the effectiveness of their involvement in and influence over the planning system.

The advantages include:

• Giving the context to make your responses to development on individual sites more effective, whether the proposal comes from a developer or from the Planning Authority
  
  
• Being better able to react to strategic planning in the “Core Strategy” for the city from the point of view of its impact on your neighbourhood
  
  
• Setting priorities for the spending of Section 106 money from developers or service spending from Council Departments such as road maintenance, parks, and housing which is increasingly being devolved to Neighbourhood Partnerships to make decisions on
  
  
•  Having a better basis for views on transport proposals
  
  

The following pages show the work that each planning group, that is a member of the NPN, has so far done towards creating their own Neighbourhood Area Plan.

Some like Redcliffe, St Paul’s and Knowle West are advanced. Some like Avonmouth and Fishponds are at an early stage. Some cover a large area, some cover a single development site

During May 2010, work in 8 neighbourhoods was assisted (by an agreement between the NPN and the University of the West of England (UWE)) by final year Planning and Architecture Degree students assigned  to Area Plan work.

That material is shown here together with the other work carried out by groups, working on their own or with professional support.

Presentation of UWE student work