The idea of a Community Planning Zone is a modified version of the Simplified Planning Zone that has been introduced by the government for large-scale commercial developers. A Community Planning Zone would have as its purpose that of allowing a local parish council to undertake its own planning in accordance with criteria to be agreed beforehand with the local Planning Authority.
The community itself could take the initiative both in preparing plans and making them happen. Instead of reacting, usually negatively, to development proposals made by outsiders, it would face the challenge, and have the advantage, of working out a locally acceptable scheme for itself. The increase in value that development usually brings might not be as great as that which accrues to an outside interest erecting an office block or laying out a theme park, with all the enormous profits going to the outsider; but it might still be substantial and would be properly shared out for the benefit of the community as a whole (with the parish eligible for not less than 50% of the local authority's share of the betterment generated in the area).