Workshop events across the Scottish Borders will take place during March and April to enable local organisations and residents to come together to help shape the future of communities.
Over the past year the five Area Partnerships have had a range of discussions around how ourselves, partners and communities can be more actively involved in developing plans together to meet local needs and address key challenges, and take advantage of the opportunities that exist – termed ‘place making’.
Events
The online events will be:
- Tweeddale – 6pm on Tuesday 22 March
- Eildon – 6pm Wednesday 23 March
- Berwickshire – 6pm Thursday 7 April
- Teviot and Liddesdale – 6pm Tuesday 26 April
- Cheviot – 6pm Wednesday 27 April
Places can be booked via Eventbrite using the links above.
Customer and community focused approach
As part of our commitment to becoming more customer and community focused in its approach, we are keen to take forward this project in partnership with communities. It is based on the ‘Place Principle’ agreed between CoSLA and the Scottish Government and which is central to a number of significant national and regional programmes and funding, including the Scottish Government’s Place Based Investment Programme, the UK Government’s Levelling-Up Fund, the Shared Prosperity Fund, the South of Scotland Economic Strategy and the Borderlands Inclusive Growth Deal.
Councillor Mark Rowley, Council Leader
“As an organisation, and along with a number of partners, we want to build on the positive experience of joint working with communities over a number of years, and which was especially evident and successful during the depths of the pandemic.
“By truly working together, and with a place making approach, we can develop coherent community-led plans that reflect local needs and ambitions, and crucially access the support and funding to be able to deliver on those plans and achieve our aims. This is an opportunity for people to shape the future of their communities and the investment into those communities.
“The upcoming workshops are the next step in the journey - starting the development of the place making approach locally by understanding what it is, how it works and how people can get involved and benefit from it. And, as we already know some communities are ready and willing to get going quickly, there’s an opportunity to identify where early activity should be focussed.
“This is not a top-down, Council-led project that will come and go. This is about transforming our relationship with communities to benefit us all over the long-term. I am particularly pleased that Petra Biberbach, Chief Executive of Planning Aid Scotland, will facilitate each workshop, providing a neutral voice and her experience of developing community-led plans and projects.”
Basis of future work
It is accepted that the timescales for the initial place making work will be measured in years rather than months, but place making is a circular process which facilitates a continued conversation with our communities, and will become the basis for all future work with communities.
A number of communities have already begun to develop place plans, and the work is designed to support communities at all stages of the place making process.