Agenda item

Consider paper by Keith Dickinson.  (Copy attached.)

5.1       With reference to paragraph 3 of the Minute of 2 September 2021, copies of a briefing paper had been circulated.  Mr Keith Dickinson gave a presentation on the content of the paper, which had two aims:  to strengthen the role of the Berwickshire Area Partnership by setting up the mechanisms whereby community views could be fed into Place Making discussions in an effective, participatory and constructive way; and it would help address concerns raised about the absence of early and effective consultation, perceived flaws in the currently proposed methodology, and difficulties in the understanding/interpretation of proposals.  This in turn would encourage greater community involvement and broader representation.  The background and context for Place Making were detailed along with a proposal to set up a Berwickshire Area Partnership Place Making Working Group.  Previous Working Groups had worked well in Berwickshire and had made recommendations which had been accepted by the Area Partnership.  It was proposed that a Working Group be created, comprising 6-8 community members, with an additional 2-3 SBC Councillors, and this Group would be charged with making recommendations to the Area Partnership relating to the development and implementation of Place Making/ Planning in Berwickshire.  This Working Group would report to a future meeting of the Area Partnership and would consider and work towards clarifying the terminology around Place Making and Place Planning; proposed joint principles; the proposed target Place Making Framework; the methodology for determining which communities to prioritise; how to best allocate resources available for Place Planning in Berwickshire; and the Area Partnership-Draft Place Making Role Agreement.  As well as being considered by the Working Group, some of this could be the subject of a facilitated workshop.

5.2       Mr James Lamb, SBC Portfolio Manager, advised that he had spoken with Mr Dickinson after the previous meeting of the Area Partnership, and was supportive of the ambition and direction of travel.  There had been a similar experience at other Area Partnership meetings and the idea of having time to build an understanding of what Place Making was about was also important to them.  It had been agreed with other Area Partnerships that a series of facilitated workshops would be held which would be open for members of the community to attend to learn and understand more about Place Making.  A tender had been issued and it was hoped to appoint a suitably qualified organisation to facilitate these workshops and then set up the workshops from the end of February.  Details on the workshops would be issued in due course.

DECISION

AGREED:

(a)       To set up a Place Making Working Group;

(b)       To the initial topics for consideration by the Working Group as detailed in the above narrative;

(c)       To plan a facilitated Place Making workshop which would explore and agree a way forward;

(d)       To propose a facilitated Borders-wide Place Making good practice workshop to learn from other areas;

(e)       To receive a further report on a method of recruitment to the Working Group; and

(f)        Where possible, SBC Officer support would be made available to the Working Group.