Investing in our Future
Sponsored editorial with Highland Council
Ambitious proposals equating to billions of pounds of investment over two decades for local roads, schools, housing, services and generating money from renewables were set out by Highland Council earlier this year.
While the Highland Housing Challenge looks to face up to the multibillion-pound task of providing sufficient social housing, as well as property for those who want to privately rent or buy, and a new Social Values Charter targets a significant amount of investment from renewables developers into a strategic fund, the third strand of this multi-faceted approach - the Highland Investment Plan (HIP) - is to be funded as part of the council’s annual budget setting process.
A detailed master planning approach has been developed to support community engagement and ensure that the plan maximises the potential of the available investment to truly transform communities.
The council has committed to creating a new generation of community-based facilities, out of which a more integrated service offering can be provided by partners. It sets out plans for new Points of Delivery (PODs) bringing together a range of organisations and community facilities in a much more focused, easily accessible way, often co-locating in a single building or groups of adjacent buildings.
Among the many benefits of this approach would be a reduction in the council’s property footprint, reduction of associated costs and the freeing up of sites and buildings for a new purpose in keeping with revised priorities, such as housing.
With considerable investment potential in our communities, the council has an obligation to maximise the power of that spend and the future benefits of investment.
Meaningful local engagement and a robust option appraisal process are central to the vision and the options for development are broad so that individual PODs can provide the best and most appropriate provision for each individual area.
In many cases this may take the form of a single building housing multiple facilities - particularly where they are designed at a rural or town level - but a cluster of new buildings may also be possible.
Taking a “whole life” approach aiming to bring together complementary services in a structured way to allow greater integration of provision, a typical POD at the community level could, for example, incorporate a nursery/ primary school under the same roof as GP and pharmacy, advice and employment services and even care home facilities, taking into consideration what a place already has, what it needs and what is easiest and most appropriate to combine.
There is also scope for a “network” type approach - a POD catering for a wider area beyond a single village - or for bringing more closely associated activities together, such as a POD dedicated purely to leisure provision.
Work PODs, meanwhile, could house different council functions together and/or see council services “co-locating” with other public bodies, such as police or ambulance. They could even provide shared office accommodation for the business sector while community-led PODs could be overseen by social enterprises and/or the third sector.
Discussions continue to take place with a range of potential procurement partners as well as external funding agencies such as SportScotland and other public bodies, while full engagement with communities themselves is a key part of the process, working through a process of narrowing down options through discussion, identifying and then confirming the preferred goal.
The aim is to coordinate with other activities that may already be under way in communities such as the development of area place plans, local place plans, and the Highland Local Development Plan.
The establishment of PODs is closely linked to a broader vision of modernising council service delivery with a degree of flexibility built in to ensure that individual local needs are always considered.
Dingwall and Thurso could be the first communities to benefit from the new POD arrangements, subject to member decision making.
Delivering where it matters
A new generation of community facilities is envisioned for the Highlands, with Points of Delivery (PODs) seeing a range of public services brought together in a single location.
PODs can take a range of forms depending on specific needs and opportunities but could include spaces for education services being provided directly alongside health, leisure, childcare and other public support.
Dingwall and Seaforth could be set to be one of the first locations to benefit from this new approach and earlier this month the public got its first glimpse of the council’s masterplan for the town and surrounding area as an event showcased plans for three separate local PODs - for the community, offices and a depot.
The most significant development for Dingwall, perhaps, is the proposed Community POD that offers a new Dingwall Primary building with the possibility of having St Clement’s Special School located on the same site.
Other community, council and partner services could be located there too, the council also working on a plan for community, sports and leisure facilities in the Dingwall Academy catchment area with High Life Highland.
Meanwhile an Office POD would see the County Buildings retained as a key council facility, while other co-location opportunities are being explored with public sector partners - some NHS Highland staff are in fact already based there.
Finally, the Depot POD would likely entail a replacement for a current council building on Craig Road that has seen better days, with the possibility of a new development also hosting the roads policing team based in the town, as well as the local ambulance station, one of the busiest in Scotland.
Graphic representations of the public estate in Dingwall exemplify the complex and cluttered arrangement of buildings that currently exists.
The aim now is to reconfigure those assets to reduce the current footprint and free up sites and buildings for a new purpose, in keeping with revised priorities, such as the need for more and better housing, particularly in the light of the major opportunities presented by development of the Inverness and Cromarty Firth Green Freeport.
This type of investment will be a key economic driver, maximising community benefit and supporting activity to sustain communities.
The voices of local people are being heard through work which looks at how people access and use different facilities, and also through developing the area place plan which will set out the shared vision and priorities for Dingwall and the surrounding area.
You can find out more about the Highland Investment Plan here
Feedback forms are also available in Dingwall Library and service point along with copies of the engagement materials for viewing.
