Recently, we welcomed colleagues from Community Places in Northern Ireland to Planning Aid Scotland for a visit focused on sharing knowledge, experiences and ideas.

Community Places is a charity that provides independent planning advice and supports communities to get involved in decisions about the places where they live.

The visit followed a landmark agreement signed in October 2025, when all five planning aid organisations across the UK came together for the first time to sign a joint Memorandum of Understanding.

The agreement brought together Community Places, Planning Aid England, Planning Aid for London, Planning Aid Scotland and Planning Aid Wales, with a shared commitment to exchanging knowledge and developing innovative approaches to their work.

The recent visit offered an opportunity to put that commitment into practice.

Exploring new approaches to support public participation in planning

Planning Aid Scotland colleagues shared their experiences of supporting communities to develop their Local Place Plans, particularly through the Shetland project and the islands project. Building communities’ own engagement skills and drawing on volunteer support were identified as key aspects of these projects.

As part of the knowledge exchange, Planning Aid Scotland invited Fife Council to deliver a session on FIONA (Fife’s Online Assistant), an AI-powered tool designed to help people find information on the Council’s website.

The presentation provided an example of how local authorities are using artificial intelligence to improve access to information and services.

Our visitors also had the opportunity to meet Jill Paterson, Chair of Planning Aid Scotland’s Board and Head of Planning at Angus Council, alongside representatives from the Scottish Government and Irene Beautyman, a Chartered Fellow of the Royal Town Planning Institute and former Place and Wellbeing Partnership Lead at the Improvement Service.

While Scotland and Northern Ireland have different planning systems, both Planning Aid Scotland and Community Places share a commitment to helping people understand planning and influence decisions about their local areas.

It was a pleasure to welcome our colleagues from Northern Ireland, and we look forward to continuing to share ideas and learn from one another through the Planning Aid National Network.