Planning in Bo –  new initiatives

In July 2016, Philip Clarke and John Archer attended a meeting in London of planners, architects and lawyers who had working relationships on land use and planning issues in Sierra Leone. It was an inaugural meeting of a potential group of professionals who could exchange experiences and develop opportunities for working together on planning related work in Sierra Leone.

We learnt of an initiative by the Prince’s Trust Foundation in association with the New Urban Agenda support of the new Sustainable Development Goals in the Commonwealth. This was in its early stages and was developing ideas to trial in appropriate cities. We discussed the potential to trial such an approach in Bo.

We have been having further discussions and more meetings are planned. As we have good relationships with Bo City and District Councils, there may be real potential here to develop such approaches through OWL and to start to address the problems arising from uncontrolled land use.