Aberfeldy Development Trust has recently been awarded funding from Rural Perth & Kinross Community Led Local Development Fund 2023-2024 to undertake a community action plan and local place plan in 2024. The process will get under way in the Spring, and there will be opportunities for everyone in the community to get involved and have their say.
What is a Community Action Plan?
A community action plan is a way of capturing the aspirations of a community and setting these out in a time bound plan. Community action plans are now increasingly recognised as an important resource for communities to have if they want to be successful in securing and directing funding for their priorities, and in making effective representation on their own behalf.
A community action plan clearly sets out:
- A vision for the future of the community
- What the community is like now (taking account of its assets and needs)
- The main themes and priorities for action
- Who should be involved and how priorities should be taken forward.
It is recommended that communities prepare plans on a 5 year cycle. Communities around Scotland have found them essential in making things happen, important as a way of re-engaging with the wider community and as a way of refreshing their community organisations. The Action Plan should be jointly prepared by the key organisations in a community and then jointly owned and delivered by them.
What is a Local Place Plan?
There is also the opportunity to undertake a Local Place Plan, which is spatial representation of specific proposals for land use. PKC is currently undertaking a review of the Local Development Plan, which takes place every 10 years. As part of this review, communities are invited to submit a Local Place Plan detailing any community aspirations for particular land or buildings or setting out why the local development plan should be amended. A Local Place Plan can be done alongside a community action plan, and registered place plans will be taken into consideration for future planning decisions for the local area. To have most influence on the Local Development Plan, communities need to submit a local place plan to PKC by end of Jan 2025.
How do we create our community led plans?
A Community Action Plan and local place plan cannot be prepared without extensive community engagement to ensure that it represents the views of a good cross section of the whole community and takes account of wider stakeholder views and plans. The process of creating a community led action plan includes these steps:
- The establishment of a Community Action Plan Steering Group which brings together the community’s key organisations to jointly plan the future of the community together.
- A Community Views Survey – of all households/or a quota sample of households
- A series of Stakeholder Interviews (Community Conversations) with different organisations and interests in the community
- The preparation of a Community Profile that collects together the facts and figures about the community
- A Community Futures Open Day Event to show the results of the process and to prioritise projects and actions
- The drafting and finalising of a 5 year Community Action Plan – as a well-designed community owned document, which can be shared with all residents and other stakeholders, supporters and funders.
- A Launch Event for the Action Plan.
A Local Place Plan can be done alongside the community planning process, to focus on the spatial elements in particular..
Who is leading this?
ADT have commissioned Small Town and Rural Development (STAR) to help facilitate this process. They have the skills, expertise and capacity that we don’t and will support the process from start to finish. We’re also recruiting a local community connector to support the process.
While we’re leading on the management of the project, the outcomes will be very much community led and a steering group from across the community will help carry it forward.
About STAR
The Small Town and Rural Development Group (STAR) work with communities to help them plan their own future, organise to take action, and develop successful projects and partnerships. Over the last 25 years they have assisted over 120 communities to prepare Community Action Plans, including many in the Perth & Kinross area. STAR have also helped over 60 communities to establish Community Development Trusts and other forms of community and social enterprises.
You can read more about STAR at https://stardevelopmentgroup.org/
To support this project, we are recruiting for a Community Connector. You can read the job description here. To apply, please send a covering email and CV to aberfeldydevelopmenttrust@gmail.com by 15th March.
Supported by Rural Perth & Kinross Community-Led Local Development (RPK CLLD) Local Action Group (LAG) with funding from the Scottish Government’s Rural Community-Led Local Development Fund 2023/24, part of the Scottish Rural Development Programme.
