As part of our open data activity (among other things I am on the DCLG Local Data Panel) Boilerhouse Media has created a new online map of Neighbourhood planning activity that is free to use and can be updated by anyone involved.
Neighbourhood Planner is available at http://neighbourhoodplanner.org.uk/.
The map currently shows 723 Neighbourhood Planning Areas (NPAs) in development, ranging from the dozen or so that have gone through the process of adoption and come into force, to 80 where there are draft plans for consultation, to the rest where communities have taken the first formal steps towards producing a neighbourhood development plan.
Data for the map when first published (June 2014) came from the Department of Communities, which had published it as open data after collecting it from the websites of local planning authorities.
This data understates the extent of neighbourhood planning activity because up to now, there has been no easy to use, free to access facility for updating the data. Since the map became public, nine new NPAs have been added to it and data for several NPAs has been updated. This is an encouraging start for a tool that relies on 'crowd-sourcing' of data to keep it up-to-date.
I presented Neighbourhood Planner at the LGA's recent Making Transparency Work event in Birmingham. If you'd like to know more, or have any feedback, please email me at v.sargent@boilerhouse.co.uk or contact me via Twitter (@vickysargent)
