Royal Deeside : Planning for Real

Ballater recently complteted a Planning for Real exercise and its first public meeting was held during the very wintry weekend of 28, 29 February 2004 in the Victoria and Albert Halls, Ballater. Despite the weather there was a very good turnout leading to lively discussion and many good ideas.

The prime issue addressed was 'community space' with the Old School, Monaltrie Park and community woodlands all featuring highly. Importantly, the exercise will enable groups within the locality, such as the Community Council to present their case to the local council and others with confidence.

We give below more details on our efforts to date.

Planning for Real is an exercise in trying to assess what issues are seen to be the most important to the community as a whole. The need to undertake such a study urgently was highlighted by forthcoming changes to Scottish law which will affect the community and by the local council declaring the Old School buildings surplus to requirements. The question arose as to how to find out if the community wanted to keep the building. Public meetings and surveys are usually quite effective here in Ballater. But the Old School would be expensive to maintain so will require good usage. So in this case it was thought that we needed to demonstrate that any views expressed did not simply reflect those of an active minority.

We felt that the Planning for Real approach helped to bring planning issues to life. So smaller meetings were held to identify the likely key issues. A huge map of the village was made and on this model houses, shops, churches etc were placed. The village youth group painted the map to make it easy to spot roads, the river, parkland etc. Photographs of the principal buildings were pasted on their models to make them instantly recognisable. The model building proved good fun. The model village would not have won any prizes but turned out to be a great success.

A public meeting was held in February at a time when the snow was nearly two feet deep. Despite this there was an excellent turn-out. Alongside the model were placed prepared cards with suggestions such as 'Play Park needed' , 'Tidy this area', 'Demolish this building' and many more plus blank cards. The people attending then used these ideas (and their own), placing the cards on appropriate places on the map. Often one idea would lead to another and the weekend saw lots of animated discussions taking place. Many people who don't normally take an active part in village affairs felt that it gave them a chance to have their say.

On the left, the chairman of the Community council is in discussion with someone unseen while to the right some local residents study the model (note the suggestion cards). In the background one of the data collectors can be seen.

Importantly, a few (not confidential) details were of those who attended so that any groups that were under-represented could be identified. Not surprisingly, in view of the weather it was seen that families with young children had the poorest attendance. Thus we were able to arrange to repeat the exercise at the school allowing both parents and children to have their say.

The author of this note was sceptical at the outset but happily concludes the exercise has been a great success. The driving force behind it all is Bell Macaulay (email)