What is the Place Standard Tool?

The Place Standard is a simple tool to structure a conversation about a place. It helps people to think about both the physical and social aspects of places, and the important relationship between them. It has 14 themes, each with a main question and further prompts to support conversations, inform the assessment and identify issues for improvement.

Why is place important?

Where we spend our time has an important effect on our lives and our wellbeing. Improving the quality of places and the opportunities we have access to can help to tackle inequalities.

Understanding what is good about a place now, and what could be better, can help us make good decisions and allow us to target resources where they are needed most. Global health challenges, including the climate emergency, mean it is more important than ever for us to think about how we can make our places more sustainable, for both people and the environment, now and for the future.

The Place Standard tool can support the design and delivery of successful places, creating good-quality places where people want to live. The 14 themes have been carefully chosen based on evidence about their combined influence on our health and wellbeing.

Who is the Place Standard tool for?

The tool is for everyone to use. It is for both communities and professionals, letting everyone work together over time using a common approach. It can be used for parts of cities, whole towns or neighbourhoods, and in urban, rural and island settings.

What is the purpose of the Place Standard tool?

The tool is a way of assessing places – whether the place is well-established, undergoing change, or is still being planned, the tool can help to identify the strengths of the place and where improvements may be needed. Research shows that the way a place functions, looks and feels can influence our health and wellbeing.

Local knowledge and a shared understanding of a place help people to make good decisions and target resources.

Different people think about places in different ways.

Some people may face unique issues and have special needs, or may face specific barriers, for example on accessibility – whether physical, visual, hearing, language or cultural.

Please provide some key data about yourself to help the organiser of this assessment analyse the results and identify whether there are specific issues for some people in your place.

This information will only be used by the organisers of your Place Standard assessment to analyse the results. It will also help the organiser to know if the feedback represents the people that live and work in your place, or if there are some people missing.

This survey is being conducted in the context of the Review of the Town Centre Action Plan 2020, the town centre first approach, the place principle, and to develop a refreshed vision for West Lothian town centres.

This survey should take a minimum of ten minutes to complete.