Welcome to the Culture and Sport Planning Toolkit

The Culture and Sport Planning Toolkit is a practical source of information and advice for all practitioners involved in culture and planning. For the first time, this toolkit brings together a combination of existing and new tools to incorporate planning for culture and sport into new and existing developments.

The toolkit will raise the profile of culture and sport in the planning process by:

• helping planning and culture professionals find information on how to integrate planning for culture and sport into their existing infrastructure
• developing a greater consistency in how planning authorities assess the need for culture and sport and build this into their plans, and
• building and sharing a body of knowledge about the best approaches to planning for cultural and sporting infrastructure.

Culture and sport planning is an integral part of creating and sustaining new and developing communities. This toolkit provides a plan-led and plan-together process for addressing culture and delivering cultural and sporting resources through planning for culture and sport.

The initiative for the toolkit came from Culture East Midlands, Culture West Midlands, Culture South East and Living East, MLA South East, Black Country Consortium, Thames Gateway South Essex and Arts Council England and was funded from the Treasury’s ‘Invest to Save Budget’ programme. The living places programme will continue to host, develop and disseminate the Culture and Sport Planning Toolkit with the support of the partnership.

Who the toolkit is for

The toolkit is primarily aimed at planning and regeneration professionals working in regional and local authorities, private sector consultancies, developers, housebuilders and infrastructure providers. Cultural, leisure and sports officers in local authorities and delivery agencies will also find this toolkit useful. 

As the toolkit aims to support the sustainable communities’ agenda, it will also benefit a wide range of interested non-professionals and organisations working in the built environment and the community including third sector community groups, local partnerships and service providers.

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