Community Links Scotland – News

Community Action Plan for Rosneath Peninsula West

For the last 12 months, Community Links Scotland have been working with the Rosneath Peninsula West Community Development Trust to produce a community action plan that would inspire the community to improve local facilities and services, the local economy and the appearance of the area which can contribute to improved quality of life and attract not only more visitors but also more people to settle in the area, particularly families with young children.

Community Links Scotland have been involved in the consultation process including a postal survey, community prioritisation day and liaising with an architect employed to design proposals for building upgrades and development of a community campus. Over 1300 local residents, community groups and businesses were targeted in the survey and main areas of interest were identified. People of the Peninsula West highlighted local transport, health and welfare, environment, recreation, housing, business opportunities, tourism and employment support as the most important issues the Trust should look into.

From the responses of the consultations, 18 projects were identified for further prioritisation. At a community prioritisation event in February, 160 community members completed additional questions on their priorities for the local area and the form that projects should take to meet these. This enabled further prioritisation of the key projects to be pursued by the Trust and allowed details of the format of these projects to be determined.

In order to prepare a Community Action Plan that was representative of the whole community of Rosneath Peninsula West, Community Links Scotland carried out an extensive and varied consultation and analysis. Identifying the underlying needs of the community involved an analysis of the socio-economic profile of the Peninsula West and surrounding areas using statistics from the Scottish Index of Multiple Deprivation (SIMD), Small Area Population Estimates (SAPE), Census and Official Labour Market Statistics (Nomis).

All the gathered information was collated in an extensive and detailed document, highlighting the 18 individual projects which outline the aims, output and outcomes to be expected from each project. They also detail how the projects would tackle community needs, meet the community demands and contribute to the national and local policies. Each profile sets out tangible projects which could be taken forward by the Trust or other local groups, along with examples of previous, similar projects conducted by groups in other communities to enable the Trust to meet their aims of taking forward the aspirations of the Rosneath Peninsula West community.

At the end, a 166-page Community Action Plan was produced, along with a summary distributed to all households on the Peninsula. The book is available to lend from Community Links Scotland, Rosneath Peninsula West Community Development Trust and the Cove library in the Burgh Hall. For a free copy of the summary document, please contact the Community Links Scotland office.

The project was funded and supported by: