Planning for well-being: a critical perspective on embedding well-being in community-led planning processes
- Submitting institution
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Birmingham City University
- Unit of assessment
- 32 - Art and Design: History, Practice and Theory
- Output identifier
- 32Z_OP_C2004
- Type
- C - Chapter in book
- DOI
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- Book title
- Designing for Health & Wellbeing: Home City Society
- Publisher
- Vernon Press
- ISBN
- 9781622735129
- Open access status
- Out of scope for open access requirements
- Month of publication
- -
- Year of publication
- 2019
- URL
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- Supplementary information
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- Request cross-referral to
- -
- Output has been delayed by COVID-19
- No
- COVID-19 affected output statement
- -
- Forensic science
- No
- Criminology
- No
- Interdisciplinary
- No
- Number of additional authors
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1
- Research group(s)
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- Proposed double-weighted
- No
- Reserve for an output with double weighting
- Yes
- Additional information
- This chapter reports the researcher’s role as project lead in the development of the ‘Shape My Town’ toolkit, the first to be created in order to engage the public and community groups in local planning processes through the creation of community-led Place Plans. The research significantly develops the model set out in the ‘Market Towns Initiative’ (2010) by introducing a consideration of the built environment. The approach combines objective and subjective assessments of place and community to build an evidence base for decision making. One of several publications relating to the development of the tool, this chapter focuses on the potential of the tool to guide and support the application of Welsh Government’s well-being agenda at community level.
The emerging Welsh Place Planning agenda is situated within the wider context of an ambition to increase local participation in the planning system. It is speculated that in order to enable local people to understand their place and to empower communities to take control of their future, new methodological approaches and tools are needed. This chapter presents a critical evaluation of the ‘Shape My Town’ tool through the lens of Welsh Government’s Well-being of Future Generations (Wales) Act 2015, a legislation which embeds healthy and sustainable development into Wales’ legislative framework. The seven ‘wellbeing goals’ and five ‘ways of working’ embedded in the Well-being Act are mapped against the Shape My Town tool before discussing a case study of its implementation.
The research finds that the sense of increased self-determination facilitated by the process can be linked to an increased sense of well-being, purpose and community cohesion. However, questions are raised about the capacity of communities to deliver effective long-term change and the capacity of overburdened, under-resourced local authorities to help deliver on these aspirations.
- Author contribution statement
- -
- Non-English
- No
- English abstract
- -