Galvanised, upskilled, exhausted? Evaluating planning capacity changes through neighbourhood plan-making in citizens, communities and intermediaries

This article examines how neighbourhood plan-making influences the capacity of citizens and communities to shape places beyond the plans themselves. Based on interviews with planners and community activists, we contribute to very-local planning knowledge by extending frameworks for evaluating how plan-making impacts future place-making capacities. These include intangible – human, social, cultural and political – assets and financial, physical and natural assets. Additionally, we highlight how planners as intermediaries can ‘galvanise’ the development of such capacities, emphasising their motivations and the value of hybrid public–private roles in such processes. This underscores the pivotal role of intermediaries in fostering sustainable local planning efforts.