Peer support network
These sessions are for anyone in the Scottish borders who is involved in community-led planning. They are a collaboration between Borders Community Action (BCA) and Scottish Borders Council (SBC), with BCA convening the sessions and SBC providing technical support and some of the presentations. They replace the SBC “placemaking” peer webinars.
There will also be space for networking and updates on how things are going in your area. The sessions are held online, 6-8pm.
Thursday 25 April session
This session featured presentations on the process for registration of Local Place Plans and on tools for community engagement. Recordings of these presentations will be available shortly:
Registration of Local Place Plans – Jess Houghton (SBC Planning Department)
Tools for community engagement – Anne McNeill (local community engagement specialist and Vice-Chair of Duns & District Community-led Planning Team)
Thursday 6 June session
Theme: Priorities to projects
The theme for this session is about moving from community priorities, which emerge through community engagement, to identifying suitable projects to include in a Local Place Plan or Community Action Plan.
The first hour of the session has been organised by Scottish Community Development Centre (SCDC) and will feature presentations from two communities which have developed community action plans and have had to make important decisions about what projects will be taken forward based on what the community have identified as their priorities. Presentations from Denis Male (Langholm Alliance) and Susan Walker (Lochalsh) will focus on:
- Partnership working to create and deliver the priorities in the plan.
- Identifying suitable community projects as part of the community-led planning process.
- Balancing existing organisation projects which need funding with the development of the community plan.
Another aspect to consider when identifying suitable projects is wider / themed plans for the area. In the second half, Karen Birch from the Borders Good Food Partnership will tell us about Borders Good Food Plan, which will have an impact on spatial planning e.g. for local food growing and we will also have a short presentation on the Borders Greenway project, a proposed active travel route from Tweedbank to Eyemouth.
Thursday 15 August session
This session will include a presentation from SBC about statutory sources of funding for projects which are part of community-led plans. More details and a registration link will be available nearer the time.