Community Places (NI)

Public benefits

Community Places’ Board of Directors believes that its purposes satisfy both elements of the public benefit requirement, that is, that there are direct benefits which are identifiable and are available to the public or a section of the public. We have identified the benefits for people and community groups which flow from our purposes as: -

access to professional advice and a range of support and capacity building services; - increased knowledge and understanding of planning and related policy matters; - increased capacity to engage with the planning system; - greater awareness of planning and related policy issues and how they affect people and local communities. These benefits are demonstrated through evaluation we carry out and through feedback we receive from voluntary organisations, community groups and individuals who use our planning, advice, research and related services. The beneficiaries of our services are charities or independent voluntary organisations whose purpose is to add value to the community as a whole and which are non-profit making or private individuals. Private individuals can only benefit where the charity is satisfied that they cannot afford to pay for private consultancy or services, e.g. persons from disadvantaged communities or on low incomes. Such individuals may only benefit where they would be assisted to gain knowledge to participate in the planning system which would otherwise be unavailable to them. We do not consider that any harm will arise from our purposes. Private benefit to ‘unintended beneficiaries’ may arise out of our activities, for example where individuals are referred to a pool of other sources of advice and support (private sector planning, architectural and other consultancy services) but this is an incidental outworking.

What your organisation does

We: - provide advice to community groups and individuals on planning and related issues; - support and promote Community Planning; - facilitate community engagement in projects, programmes and policy making.