Agenda item

3.1       With reference to paragraph 3 of the Minute of 1 July 2021, SBC Service Director Customer & Communities, Mrs Jenni Craig, and SBC Portfolio Manager, Mr James Lamb, were in attendance to present an update on Place Making.  Mr Lamb summarised the progress of the previous Place Making workshop held with Diarmaid Lawlor of Scottish Futures Trust where key issues and success factors had been identified.  The output from all workshops held with Area Partnerships were included in a report considered by Scottish Borders Council in August 2021.  The main purpose of Place Making was to develop joint working by Scottish Borders Council, partner organisations, and communities, to build on existing work and to learn from experiences related to the COVID-19 pandemic.  Place Making would be a multi-year project that would see communities developing local plans suited to each community.  As part of the presentation, feedback was requested on the project’s principles, framework, resources and plan.  The meeting was asked for agreement on the project principles, criteria for identifying communities to be prioritised, affirming Place Making governance, and to agree next steps.  It was noted that Scottish Borders Council had agreed on the draft principles to develop place-making and that seven had been suggested by stakeholders, with a further six added that Scottish Borders Council felt was important to include.  It was hoped that the Area Partnership would form a Locality Programme Board to have oversight of the Locality Plan and prioritise communities’ activities in Place making.  Mrs Craig emphasised that an inclusive and collective approach should be pursued to ensure equality between rural and urban communities; locality plans were owned by the Area Partnerships which were to be built on community plans, and that the project should be taken forward with mutual trust.  The aspiration was that every community would be supported to develop its own plan but this would take time and could not all be done at once.  The project had a short-term plan to take forward to early 2022 so that actions could be agreed and communities could observe changes and feed back to the Are Partnership.

3.2       Mr Mitchell enquired as to the status of Duns in the report and whether towns that did not have completed plans would get assistance, whether each Area Partnership would set their own framework and what timescale there was to have locality plans produced.  Ms McNeill expressed concern that the project seemed not to be community-led as the additional posts were employed by Scottish Borders Council with no direct community capacity building; Duns did not fall within any of the indices referred to in the report while Eyemouth did; and was disappointed that the initial focus was on those towns which already had plans.   Mrs Craig responded that Duns and a number of other places in Berwickshire were referred to in the report and that town centre index was not the only measurement of need.  Work on the expansion of the indices was required to reflect smaller settlements to allow Area Partnerships to prioritise.  It was noted that the framework was a draft and that feedback on alternatives was welcome.  With reference to common frameworks, it was noted that the preference was for a common framework to be in place across all the Area Partnerships using a model recognised by Scottish Futures Trust and place-based investment programmes.  It was confirmed that the purpose of the staff resources was to be focussed on communities to support locality plan development.

3.3       Ms Amaral enquired whether the framework was to be taken to community councils for confirmation and whether there was flexibility for community council boundaries to capture other interested groups.  It was good to see officers’ time would be spent in developing capacity in communities but it would also be helpful to have budgets going directly to communities to do things for themselves.  Mr Dickinson referred to agreement on the principles, priorities and framework by 7 September and if so, that timescale was too rushed.  Councillor Rowley noted that having nine staff funded was positive for the Place Making project in the Borders.  In terms of each of the 69 Community Councils across the Borders having their own plan, perhaps consideration could be given to Community Councils working together.  There may also be cross-community themes which could work in a themed plan rather than in geographic plans.  Councillor Rowley suggested some of the larger settlements may consider working with the hinterland and not just with community councils but include other community groups as well.  The criteria in the Council report had been a first draft and areas identified where it was thought benefits could be achieved quickly.  There were a number of funds available to communities from Scottish Government, Borderlands, etc. and it was necessary to have projects worked up enough to get funding released, and it was recognised that some communities would need assistance to get to this stage.  Communities working together either formally or informally was to be welcomed, and the idea of using a Community Council boundary for a plan was the smallest area and a matter for local discussion and agreement. 

            DECISION

            NOTED that feedback on the Place making proposals should be sent to Mr Lamb, SBC Portfolio Manager, by 30 September 2021.