Community Planning Team Leaders across the District have, over the last few months, been busily preparing ‘toolkits’ designed for use by Parish and Town Councils to draw up and develop their own community plans to ensure that they are locally specific and truly reflective of the needs of the community.
Amber Skyring, the Community Planning Team Leader for the Northern Area introduced the progress so far in developing these toolkits and how they are going work.
What is a Community Planning Toolkit ?
- The toolkit is a pack that has been designed to help your community complete a community plan.
- It comes with ‘hands on’ support and guidance from your local authority
and other organisations based in Wiltshire.
- There is funding available to help you develop your local community plan.
What’s in the toolkit ? -
- It is a step-by-step process to help Parish and Town Councils to develop their own Community Plan.
- Worksheets have been designed to take you through each stage.
- It has been designed to be as simple, yet as comprehensive as possible.
- It is flexible enough so that each sheet can be used as a template to develop your own approach.
- Also contained is advice about how to utilise the funds already available for the development of Community Plans, particularly how to use this money to access larger amounts of grant funding.
But what’s the difference this time ?
- This time it is really local !
- It is about your local community really influencing the BIGGER picture.
- The toolkit helps you to develop your own ‘unique’ community plan.
The next step is the official launch of the toolkit in the Autumn . Following this, and in order to provide support and guidance in developing the community plan, Amber and her Community Planning Team Leader colleagues, will be available to attend Parish and Town Council meetings to guide and help them get on their way.
Wilton Town Council have recently piloted elements of the toolkit and have successfully completed their own Wilton Town Plan.