Agenda item

Presentation by James Lamb.  (Attached)

4.1       With reference to paragraph 8 of the Minute of 4 March 2021, copies of a presentation with an update on Place Making had been circulated.  Naomi Sweeney, SBC Project Manager, advised that there had been presentations and discussions at all the Area Partnerships since Spring 2021.  Facilitated Area Partnership workshops were planned for 14 and 26 March 2022 which would allow an understanding of place making, agreement to a memorandum of understanding and prioritisation of communities.  During 2022/23, a Forward Plan would be developed which would include prioritised communities and Borderland target towns.  The role of the Area Partnerships was to agree and monitor actions and themes, Locality Plans and their delivery, while also considering future priorities.  In terms of implications for the CPP review, the place narrative looked at what was good/a strength; what and needed to change, where and why; what changes would make a difference; and what opportunities existed.  A vision and objectives would be developed along with priorities, projects and action plans.  Learning from place plans would allow common themes to be recognised between communities, localities and the wider Borders.  This would contribute to the refresh of the Community Plan and the Borderlands Towns Investment Programme.  Project development and delivery would need to be considered alongside service planning and delivery, and by securing funding a project pipeline would then be ready to roll out. 

4.2       Cllr Bell referred to outcomes and asked for clarification on the output from the place making process.  There was some confusion around the definition of place making which for some communities was a process to feed into the Local Development Plan, while another could view it as a developing a better understanding of how everyone worked together.  A Locality Plan in Community Planning terms was based on reducing inequalities.  Ms Sweeney advised that place making was an ongoing consultative process.  Workshops were being held to establish 15 place plans for this year, with the aim of having plans for the 69 Community Council areas thereafter.  Four of the plans related to Borderlands funding and were being produced quickly.  It was very much around working with the capabilities and capacity of communities to produce the rest.  Some communities were keen to proceed while others would require support.   The terms ‘place making’ was confusing but a local place plan looked at the objectives of a community and the actions needed to join these up.  There was no prescriptive way to put together a place plan so they would vary.  Cllr Bell sought further clarification on the outputs for locality plans and those in place plans.  Cllr Rowley advised that different communities had different views on this, with some communities doing place planning themselves to determine how their communities would evolve and develop and what they needed in terms of services, etc.  The SBC Director Resilient Communities further advised that there was no definitive answer at the moment as there would be different outputs from different communities so this would need to come back to the Community Planning Partnership for further discussion.  The aim was to progress a different way of working and for our communities to decide their own priorities, with partners then working alongside them to achieve these.  There were currently multiple funding opportunities.  There did seem to be some confusion between place plans and the links to Local Development Plan/the planning system so a piece of work would be carried out to try to provide clarity.  The SBC Chief Executive confirmed that there was no consistent approach but this could be seen as a measure of success as communities would be different and outputs/outcomes would be different in each case.  Place shaping did need to be community led and outcomes did need to match.  Ms Sweeeny confirmed that more joined up work was needed by partners in our communities so that communities were leading with a bottom up approach rather than being dictated to by others, pulling a community together with a joined up approach.  Mrs Hume added that it would be vital to do it with the people and not for the people. 

DECISION

NOTED.