Offer your knowledge and skills

Use your local knowledge to show how development in your area can be more environmentally sustainable.

For instance

You might know of buildings that could be brought back into use, which would remove or reduce the need to build on open land.

You could talk about reusing historic buildings or undertaking landscape character assessments.

Professional planners often lack this local knowledge and so your work could be very valuable.

Collect and use evidence
Anyone with relevant information should be encouraged to help in building up the information/evidence base and using it to pinpoint issues and solutions.

Suggest to your local authority that it carry out a survey with the local community's assistance to identify locally significant features and buildings.

Identify information that backs up your arguments and invite the local authority to rely on it when it selects what documents to prepare and when it decides its policies.

Demonstrate that using the information you have gathered will improve the 'soundness' of the document.