This network will be relevant to Heads of Planning Policy, Local Plan Managers or Team leaders with the responsibility for the delivery of the local plan including staff, budgets and work programmes for their local plan. The network uses basecamp and contains lots of useful information on how to use it. If you wish to join the network please email [email protected]
As well as our website, we run a number of practitioners' forums on Basecamp. This is a great way for Local Government practitioners across the country to discuss issues and challenges they face and share ideas.
PAS will be supporting a Local Plan Leaders network to allow local plan lead officers to share information and ask advice. This will be particularly useful for LPAs who are aiming to submit their local plan before December 2026, under the present local plan system, but we will also cover support in both the present and future plan making process. This network will be relevant to Heads of Planning Policy, Local Plan Managers or Team leaders with the responsibility for the delivery of the local plan including staff, budgets and work programmes for their local plan. This Local Plan leaders network is very new and has already been a useful tool for many.
Feel free to share with colleagues as well. We host regular monthly drop-in sessions for the forum via Teams which we advertise on the basecamp schedule. Please note this forum is strictly for Local Government practitioners only. If you wish to join the network please email [email protected]
Read below for more information on the network:
An online platform for sharing information - You can now register on our online Basecamp system which will help keep you up to date and enable you to take part in on-line discussions/threads, etc about all things Local Plans. This is an online space for Heads of Planning, local plan managers, or team leaders to ask questions, post updates and share experience, as well as to help PAS develop our package of support on plans in both the current and emerging systems. Joining the Basecamp forum is totally voluntary and you can always drop out of it in the future. Once you have joined the Local Plan Leaders network, there is guidance available (pinned at the top of the message board) to help navigate basecamp.
We've set up this space to allow conversations and collaboration between local authorities as well as with PAS. The team at PAS have used Basecamp for years as our online collaboration space. It's a website and it sends you notifications so you might experience it as a series of emails. If you're interested there is a quick guide here https://basecamp.com/how-it-works
The reason for using Basecamp is to give us a place away from our main website where we can discuss issues and ideas with LPAs without the pressure of having fully-formed answers and where we can develop ideas without setting hares running. As things around the new plans system become clearer we can push things into our main website for general consumption. Our main website will continue to publish existing help and advice and communicate PAS support activity.
If we were to publish a set of 'rules' it would read something like: "Basecamp is where LPAs and PAS discuss and develop ideas - none of the content is official advice".
This is a space for all of us so please feel free to start contributing in any way. All information will be treated confidentially.
The best way to familiarise yourselves with Basecamp is to use it. Here are a few simple suggestions to keep in mind:
You can make points and ask questions on the message board – PAS will be keeping an eye out but please chip in with your own views and answers - that is what makes Basecamp interesting.
If you want to attract someone’s attention use an ampersand like this @
Use "Activity" at the top of the screen to see what is going on. It's like rolling news. "Hey" highlights new things for you in your projects and where you've been tagged.
As things are updated and posted you will receive a notification. Look at the section on notifications to manage how often you are pinged.
Managing Basecamp through email can be useful, but also a bit confusing. I have turned off most email notifications except where I get directly tagged, as I found them too much, but others find this function useful, as you can just reply directly to emails, rather than have to come onto the website. Note that if you reply to emails, it ends up as a post on Basecamp. Sometimes the email you receive may look as if someone has directly emailed you with their query when actually it's just a Basecamp post, so can cause some confusion! We set up all new users to receive email notifications when things are posted, if you want to change how you are notified, i.e. have a look at basecamp rather than receive emails of every post, you can update your notification settings.
There’s lots of information on the Basecamp message board. You can filter by topic on the right hand side ‘All messages’ button. When posting on the message board click ‘Pick a category’ and choose a topic. This helps keep the platform easy to navigate.
We look forward to working with you on Basecamp. We will run the space for as long as it is useful - Happy Basecamping!