Invergordon, Saltburn and Westwood
/SCDC are currently working with a partnership of community organisations in Invergordon, who are keen to develop a community-led action plan for the areas covered by Saltburn and Westwood Community Council and Invergordon Community Council areas.
Invergordon sits on the Cromarty Firth and is part of the area covered by the new Inverness & Cromarty Firth Green Freeport. This could result in big changes for the town and the development of a community action plan at this point is well timed. It will enable the community to identify their needs and aspirations and start to look at the opportunities that new developments might create to realise the town’s ambitions.
The community plan steering group have carried out a survey of local residents in the area. They took the key points from the survey and met with local public sector bodies, third sector organisations and private sector partners like the Freeport, to discuss what actions need to happen to meet the needs identified in the survey, and who could be involved in doing this. They’re now drawing up their draft plan, which will go back out to partners and the local community for comments and approval.
In pulling this plan together, they’ve drawn on previous work that was done through the Climate Action Town project and looked at other local plans that cover the area. They aim to make their finished plan meet the requirements of the Planning (Scotland) Act 2019 so that it can be registered as their local place plan too.
Key points to date:
A good strong steering group that is made up of a number of key organisations from the town can help with a sense of collective ownership of the plan, rather than it being seen as the responsibility of one organisation.
The “planscape” is messy – creating a strong community-led plan that can feed into other planning processes makes sense.
It is worthwhile spending time talking to partner organisations to create a plan that’s got some commitment around delivery.
