This toolkit aims to help public authorities, professionals and local communities reach a balanced view about the current and future sustainability of rural communities.
Traditionally, planning and housing policies have focused development at key locations based on assessment of the availability of public transport, shops, facilities and services.
But more sophisticated planning and development processes are needed if we are to encourage a more sustainable approach that recognises how places and communities really work in practice.
This project sets out such an approach within a toolkit relevant across a range of spatial levels – from the smallest, most scattered hamlet to larger market towns.
A report explaining the toolkit process can be downloaded by clicking here (438kb pdf file).
The toolkit itself can be downloaded by clicking here (86kb pdf file).
To download a blank worksheet for your community, click here.
NOTES: The worked example included in section 5 of the toolkit is to give an idea of how information might be recorded and used. While the statistics are drawn from published sources, please note the stage 1 and stage 2 comments are illustrative only and do not reflect views derived from local involvement and testing.
These files are quite large, so may take time to download on slower connections.
