Community planning for Belfast

Background to community planning

Community planning involves the local council, statutory agencies, community and voluntary sectors working together to identify local community needs and then designing and providing services to improve people's lives.

For Belfast, we have led the community planning process. We worked with partners, including representatives from the statutory, business, higher education, and community and voluntary sectors, to develop a long-term plan to improve the social, economic and environmental well-being of the city.

Belfast Community Planning Partnership

While developing the community plan, we formed the Belfast Community Planning Partnership, with organisations named as community planning partners in legislation. They have a specific duty to participate in the community planning process.

• Public Health Agency (link opens in new window)
• Health and Social Care Board (link opens in new window)
• Belfast Health and Social Care Trust (link opens in new window)
• South Eastern Health and Social Care Trust (link opens in new window)
• Housing Executive (link opens in new window)
• Education Authority (link opens in new window)
• Council for Catholic Maintained Schools (link opens in new window)
• Libraries NI (link opens in new window)
• Police Service of Northern Ireland (link opens in new window)
• Northern Ireland Fire and Rescue Service (link opens in new window)
• Invest Northern Ireland (link opens in new window)
• Sport Northern Ireland (link opens in new window)
• Tourism Northern Ireland (link opens in new window)

The Belfast Agenda

Our community plan is the Belfast Agenda. It is the city's strategic plan for the future. It provides a simple, clear framework for plans and strategies which we'll take forward with our partner organisations.

As part of community planning, we'll be addressing social issues, spatial planning and place-shaping to improve the well-being of residents in the council area.