Planning and development consultancy Lichfields, recently released a report entitled: Housing delivery through Neighbourhood Plans. The 20-page report revealed what Lichfields discovered through analysis of 330 ‘made’ Neighbourhood Plans. Below is a summary of the findings.

Neighbourhood Plans are popular with communities
It has been over six years since the introduction of the 2011 Localism Act, and despite a slow start, the number of made Neighbourhood Plans illustrates their popularity, with Government reporting in late 2017 that over 400 Neighbourhood Plans were in place. As of March 2018, the latest research indicates that 542 Neighbourhood Plans have been made, and across England, 137 Local Planning Authorities (40%) contain at least one made Neighbourhood Plan and 90 of those authorities have more than one.

The appetite of local communities to shape development in their area is strong, with 1,969 Neighbourhood Plan areas designated across 310 Local Planning Authorities. However, the gap between the number of designations and number of made plans, which has continued to widen in the last year, perhaps highlights the realities of how difficult it can be in practice for neighbourhood forums to successfully bring forward their plans.