What is a ‘local place plan’?
The Local Place Plan is the village’s opportunity to express its ambitions for Balloch, Haldane and Jamestown - the area within the Community Council boundary shown on the map.
Local Place Plans give local communities more influence over what happens in their area.
They are part of new planning legislation that enables communities to identify their local priorities and develop a plan to tackle them. Their most important feature is that they are led by the community itself.
Planning authorities - either Loch Lomond and the Trossachs National Park or West Dunbartonshire Council, depending where you live in Balloch and Haldane - are legally obliged to take account of registered Local Place Plans as they prepare their next Local Development Plans.
The Scottish Government says that Local Place Plans “offer the opportunity for a community-led, collaborative approach to creating great local places… effectively empowering communities to play a proactive role in defining the future of their places” (Circular 1/2022, paragraph 3).
You can find out more about Local Place Plans on this government webpage.
Although Local Place Plans must include proposals for the development and use of land, they can include other things that the community might want to achieve too. There is no legal requirement for the Council or the National Park to take account of anything else in Local Place Plans beyond planning issues. But experience suggests that they can be a good opportunity to raise other issues.
EXAMPLES FROM ELSEWHERE
More and more communities around Scotland have started to produce Local Place Plans since the new legislation came into force in 2023.
The examples below give you a flavour of what other plans have covered. Each involved the same planner/ facilitator who is supporting our plan.
Each plan is different, because each community has distinct needs. Balloch and Haldane’s plan will be different again, but the general approach will be similar.
KINLOCHLEVEN Local Place Plan
Like Balloch and Haldane, Kinlochleven has an industrial past in a stunning setting. When the smelter closed 20 years ago, the village saw some regeneration and investment - but it stalled after a few years, and more action is needed.
Kinlochleven Local Place Plan was registered in March 2025, representing a new dawn for the community.
After false starts in previous years, the Plan lays out a new future based on community action and more productive relationships with the main local landowner and the public sector.
Producing the Plan achieved consensus locally on what to focus on, and gave the community a much stronger position to get what they needed with the main landowner and the public sector.
There were also some quick wins, like reopening the Aluminium Story tourist attraction in the centre of the village.
GARNOCK VALLEY LOCAL PLACE PLAN
This Local Place Plan for Beith, Dalry and Kilbirnie in North Ayrshire shows what ambitious local communities can aspire to.
At the heart of the plan is the community and public sector working together for common cause - achieving community aspirations, which in turn national agendas like jobs, health and climate action.
The plan recently picked up a special national award from Scotland Loves Local - in recognition of the collaborative nature of the work.
The team is now forging ahead with delivery. It will take time and effort, but the plan has good support from which to build.
The Garnock Valley may be bigger, but the approach is the same in Balloch and Haldane. So it’s interesting to look at how they want about their plan and what it contains.
Find out more at www.ourgarnockvalley.net
Time will tell. But looking at what some older community-led plans have achieved can help answer that question.
IS IT WORTH IT?
Although Local Place Plans like the two above are a new concept, many communities have developed similar community-led plans in the past (including our very own 2014 Community Action Plan of course).
Here are three examples that demonstrate the scope of what can be achieved by having your own plan.
Langholm Community Plan
Langholm’s 10-year Community Plan, produced in 2020, led immediately to funding for two community workers who put together the successful community buyout of the local estate from the local landowner, Buccleuch, a year later.
Crianlarich into Action
Crianlarich’s 2011 community action plan led to an immediate grant of £15,000 to upgrade the public toilets, a long lease of the derelict station yard in the village centre by the Council to the community for a park, picnic tables and car parking, and - after a few years of hard work - a £200,000 path network next to the village on forestry land for locals and visitors.
Huntly: Room to Thrive
The community’s 2018 and 2022 plans resulted in 6 months rent free lease of a closed RBS bank on the town square as a community space.
That then led to community purchase of the bank and two vacant shops on the square a year later, and their refurbishment and reopening as business premises.
You can read more about what the community has achieved on their development trust’s website.