Overview
Know your Place is about encouraging curiosity in what makes your local area unique, and is primarily delivered through community events. Through sharing a range of maps and place-based data, and posing open questions around place-based themes, it aims to encourage curiosity, discussion, build understanding, and to assist communities to define local priorities. The idea is that with local priorities identified, the community, District Council, and other agencies or service providers can then work together to consider if and how these key issues could be managed or planned for.
A distinctive feature of the initiative is the lack of presumption as to next steps. The information collated has been proven to lend itself well to the development or review of a neighbourhood plan or neighbourhood priorities statement. However, other potential outcomes or follow-on activities are equally possible, at a range of scales, such as:
- inspiring community projects,
- building connections and networks,
- informing casework,
- challenging assumptions or building solidarity on particular topics, and
- assigning value to lived experience.
Know your Place events are generally organised through a partnership between the District Council and town and parish councils or community groups. The District Council's Neighbourhood Planning Team welcome enquiries about opportunities for events in new locations.
Origins of Know your Place
Know your Place was developed in-house following the District Council's involvement in a national pilot, initiated by the UK Government, to explore how a new, simpler approach to neighbourhood planning might be delivered.
The pilot aligned with the proposed introduction of neighbourhood priorities statements, a new form of planning document addressed in the 2023 Levelling-Up and Regeneration Act (Schedule 7, Part 15K). The idea is that a neighbourhood priorities statement, quicker and easier to develop than a full neighbourhood plan, could be considered by local authorities when developing or reviewing their local plan (i.e. the plan for the District), and could also inform the delivery of other public services, not solely related to land use planning.
Bassetlaw was one of seven local planning authorities involved in the pilot, with each approaching it in their own way. The Bassetlaw pilot was informed by first-hand research and practice, and was focused on ways to assist communities to better understand their local area. The view was that, through developing a better, shared understanding, communities will be in a stronger position to consider if and how the area should be managed going forward – including the decision whether to develop a neighbourhood plan. This approach can be summarised as understanding first, followed by management as required. Following the end of the pilot, the success of the approach in Bassetlaw saw it incorporated into the neighbourhood planning service offer, providing an ideal start to conversations about all things local.
Last Updated on Monday, April 7, 2025