Political devolution in the UK has afforded opportunities for studying policy differences and similarities in relation to local‐level community‐based planning initiatives in England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland. Organised around the concepts of ‘lesson‐drawing’ and the ‘filling in’ of local governance, this paper critically considers aspects of policy design and development associated with community‐based planning within and between the devolved UK polities. In practice, policy instruments vary with respect to their institutional, scalar and organisational rationalities. A policy mobility perspective may enable a relatively more critical understanding of how local governance arrangements are being externally and internally shaped in the respective devolved nation‐regions.