The Trust can help town and parish councils or Neighbourhood Plan Steering Groups create a robust Neighbourhood Plan, taking full account of the environment and its value to people and wildlife, through the creation of a Community-level Green Infrastructure Plan.

Benefits of Neighbourhood Planning

• A robust Neighbourhood Plan – takes full account of local greenspace, biodiversity, historic environment, access and landscape issues.
• Built on a strong consultative basis – supports wider Neighbourhood Planning process.
• Can help kick-start the Neighbourhood Planning process by providing an interesting and engaging focus for the community – something many people feel passionately about.
• Helps shape the future of local communities, ensuring the environment is protected and enhanced.
• Identifies projects that can be taken forward.
• Creates mechanism for designation of Local Green Spaces – a high level of protection.
• Provision of valuable information (including maps), identifying key environmental assets for protection and improvement, to help guide sustainable development in the community.

What is Involved

The production of a Community-level Green Infrastructure Plan takes place over a period of 8-12 months, fully facilitated by the Trust.  The process includes workshops, community events, questionnaires and other stakeholder engagement.

How much does it on average costs?

Usually between £3,000 and £3,500, but grant funding is available and the Trust can help secure this.

Partner Reference

Helen Flack, Chair of the Silsoe Neighbourhood Plan Steering Group, said this about her experience working with our team:

We commissioned the Greensand Trust to produce a Green Infrastructure Plan (GIP) for the Silsoe Neighbourhood Plan in 2017 and have been delighted with the results.  Jon Balaam led the work and worked alongside the Silsoe Neighbourhood Plan Steering Committee (SNPSC) as a partner, thoroughly researching the green infrastructure of Silsoe and collaborating with us on our survey and exhibitions so that together we could collate enough robust evidence to create the Environment policies in our Plan, as well as completing the GIP. 

The process was a lengthy one and we were pleased to be working with such able and knowledgeable partners – always on hand to share advice, as well as attend meetings to ensure that we all had the information we needed to put together our Plan and the GIP.

The Greensand Trust were a real asset in helping us complete our Neighbourhood Plan.  Not only did they work alongside us on the Green Infrastructure Plan (GIP) that we had commissioned them to do, they also were able to use their considerable local knowledge to input and advise every step of the way so that our Neighbourhood Plan reflected not only the needs of the Parish Council, but also that of residents, and this then created the foundations for our environment policies in particular.

The Trust sought to understand what we wanted to achieve in our Neighbourhood Plan by presenting to the committee, asking questions and attending meetings, as well as sharing research and data through surveys and exhibitions.  Because they were so approachable, we were able to combine our knowledge and understanding easily, to broaden our understanding for the Neighbourhood Plan area together and ensure that the GIP was integral within the Neighbourhood Plan.

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