Local Resilience Plans & Participatory Budgets

The Inner Forth’s diverse heritage creates a rich fabric of place, purpose and belonging for the area’s communities. The sense of identity that this heritage creates is fundamental to strengthening community connections and wellbeing, which further increases each community’s ability to adapt and bounce back from challenges like extreme weather events, climate and social change.

As part of the new Scottish planning system, introduced by the Planning (Scotland) Act 2019, communities are now offered the opportunity to feed into the planning system by creating Local Place Plans, containing proposals for the development and use of land within their local area. 

As a result, there is an opportunity to ensure that heritage, which gives communities their sense of place, is seen as a key asset for communities in the development of local resilience and that they have opportunities to discuss and identify what climate change will mean for their important local heritage. Creating heritage-focused Local Resilience Plans (as a step before a Local Place Plan) will empower communities by involving them in local decision and plan-making processes. In turn, this has the potential to increase both the resilience of their local heritage - and of their own community. 

The process of co-developing and delivering heritage-focused Local Resilience Plans, with participatory budgets, will be piloted within the communities of Hawkhill (Clackmannanshire), Fallin (Stirling), Bainsford & Langlees (Falkirk), and Kincardine (Fife). Each community will be guided through the co-design of their local resilience plan, via a series of workshops facilitated by a consultant. Following a participatory budgeting process, Climate FORTH will work with the community groups and other community members to deliver the actions.