Consultation with all sections of the community on City Centre Area Action Plans is required by law however young people are frequently missed out of the process.

This case study describes the work of Leeds City Council who are preparing a City Centre Area Action Plan in line with the new UK planning system. The Plan will take several years to prepare and the Council envisages three stages of consultation. The first stage is to ask people for their ideas on what should be in the plan – the Council were keen to ensure that young people were included in this process.

Leeds Development Department (LDD) and Yorkshire Planning Aid wanted to ensure that young people’s views were taken into account during the development of the Plan. A questionnaire was prepared and distributed by Leeds Youth Council (LYC) members within their schools.

LYC compiled the results and held a workshop looking at emerging issues. The results of this workshop and the questionnaire were then considered by LDD and council members and incorporated into an Alternative Options Paper. This was the subject of another LYC workshop and the responses were incorporated into the Preferred Options Paper which fed into the overall Action Plan.

Young people’s ideas and suggestions were incorporated into the Area Action Plan for Leeds City Centre. Views of 262 young people were obtained in total. A mechanism has now been established to facilitate further involvement by young people in Development Plan documents.

Leeds City Centre Area Action Plan
enquiries@ascskills.org.uk

//2005

case

Urban Policy > Social inclusion & integration > Integration of social groups

Young people