What you need to know about the policy context

Culture and sport contributes to the health and well-being of people. They also support community cohesion and assist successful economic development and regeneration ensuring sustainability. The spatial planning system and spatial planners need to harness these relationships and embed culture and sport throughout the development process.

The government’s approach to delivering sustainable development through planning is one that “goes beyond traditional land use planning to bring together and integrate policies for the development and use of land with other policies and programmes which influence the nature of places and how they function,” (Planning Policy Statement 1: Delivering Sustainable Development).

It is important to have strong planning policies in development plans to reinforce the important contribution that culture and sport development can make to people’s quality of life.

Positively planning for culture and sport can help by:

• Identifying the community’s cultural needs
• Setting up the right policy framework to enable sustainable development
• Helping to co-ordinate the delivery of necessary physical and social infrastructure through development
• Emphasising identity, place-making, community pride and heritage, and
• Realigning links between the various cultural agencies, local government and the community.

This section explains the planning and development context for: (see diagram)

Strategic Planning for Culture and Sport

• National
• Regional and sub-regional spatial strategies

Local Planning for Culture and Sport

• Local Development Framework
• Sustainable Community Strategy

Local Infrastructure Planning

• Development agenda for culture and sport