1. Neighbourhood Plans – Web Presence
The web presence that other “front runner” areas have, tend to be because they were
set up by well established community groups. As such do not have a specific focus
on neighbourhood plans but more general community issues. The Bermondsey and
Bankside neighbourhood forums may be interested in the following websites and
contacting the relevant groups to learn from their experiences.
Balsall Heath (Birmingham) www.balsallheathforum.org.uk. The community group
has been established for over 20 years and was set up to improve a deprived area of
the city. Their website does not have any specific information on their neighbourhood
plan but because of their experience of community led regeneration have received
Home Office funding to advise other groups. They have an executive body and paid
staff. Contact details are: 0121 446 6183. admin@balsallheathforum.org.
Lockleaze (Bristol) www.lockleazevoice.org.uk. A well established community group
in a suburban area of Bristol which has pressure from developers for growth. Again
the website covers a range of topics including training courses for local people and
plans for the area.
Dawlish (Devon) http://www.dawlishcommunitytrust.org.uk A community group that
has created a strategic action plan 2005-15 for their area and a masterplan for the
town centre’s development. The plan is available to view on the website. Contact is
through a form on the website or (01626) 866803.
Devonshire Park (Wirral) devonshireparkresidents.wordpress.com The residents
maintain a blog about their activities.
Hackbridge (Sutton) The information on Hackbridge Community Forum is hosted on
the Sutton Council website. There is an existing Supplementary Planning Document
covering the area which might be of interest because their ambition is to become the
greenest suburb in the UK. Contact details are: 020 8770 4996, email
matt.archer@sutton.gov.uk
Mole Valley (Surrey) http://www.bookhamvision.org/. Prior to the neighbourhood
planning award an exercise to establish a vision for the area was carried out, and this
website was part of the that.
Philip Hylton at Windsor and Maidenhead Borough Council also has some useful
information on the Ascot group’s thinking:
What we have done in Ascot et al. is to establish what they will need from the web site and
what they will need as a back office function / collaborative workspace. I set up an example
website for the group using wordpress, as used by Bermondsey Forum, to start a discussion
and arranged quotes from some web developers. The group have decided that the
mainstream developer quotes are too expensive (£3000+) but there is a local web developer
that they are keen to involve if the price is right. Negotiations are ongoing, and in the interim
we will add more to the free web site to make it usable. To view this page, go to:
http://ascotandthesunnings.wordpress.com/. This public fronting web page is a useful hub
where I envisage posting documents, polls and links to consultations such as a survey
monkey questionnaire (using the council’s account).
However, wordpress sites do not offer the functionality to manage a Neighbourhood Plan, and
while the council has Limehouse software, we are keen for it to be community owned. I
therefore looked at a range of collaborative software like Yahoo Groups, Wikispaces, PB
works, all of which allow group discussion and collaborative working – but all have their

2. limitations. At present the group are using a yahoo group and a personalised group email to
utilise in conjunction with the web site as a conduit for information, to have people sign up to
the process, and to notify of updates. This is very much in its infancy and we do not know how
it will work in practice at this time. In our frontrunner Neighbourhood, Bray Parish, at present
they are asking their community if anyone who is involved in IT can set up a decent website. If
not they too will go with the wordpress site.