Keen readers of The Bridge may remember, in April 2022’s edition, an article setting out the context and need for creating a new Community Plan. The plan will look forward to how we’d like the community to be in a decade’s time. When complete, it will be used to deliver actions and attract investment to improve life in Doune, Deanston and our rural areas.

The process of creating a new Community Plan is being organised by Kilmadock Development Trust on behalf of the community. The trust’s Development Officer (Neil Fergusson), will be leading the organisation in close consultation with trust directors, Kilmadock Community Council and Community Action for Deanston. If you’re part of a business, group or organisation that wants to be closely involved with creating the plan, please get in touch. We are also getting extra support through the Sustaining Choices, which you can read more on here.

A community plan doesn’t create itself. It needs to be informed by voices from across the community, and will take collaboration. This will take a number of months and different activities.

Community Views

To start, over summer, we will be collecting as many views from across the community as possible. This will be through simple online or paper surveys. We’ll be looking to find out the aspects of life in Argaty, Buchany, Deanston and Doune that people appreciate; the good things. Not everything is perfect however, so we also want to know about the not good things. Looking to the future, we also want to know about things that need worked on, or new ideas that can be explored.

Workshops

In the next stage we’ll take the results from the opening community survey, see where there is consensus, and look into the ideas that have been put on the table. This will be done through discussions and activities at workshops, held in the autumn. As not everyone can make it along to events, we’ll make sure there are remote ways to look at the information being considered and contribute points of view.

Final Review

Once the workshops have been completed, we’ll hopefully have clear ideas on the changes and improvements that people want to see in the future. This final stage, will begin with behind the scenes work to bring it all together. This will make sure the proposals as a whole are coherent (for example, one proposed actions isn’t contrary to another). It will also give time to conduct any research needed for specific ideas. A draft Community Plan will then be produced, which will be displayed for review. Feedback received will then be incorporated into the final plan.