This On Our Doorsteps project aims to stimulate more and better community engagement in local planning and regeneration

Background

Evidence from recent consultation exercises has shown that there is a general need for more local involvement in shaping the future of the town, both from local people and from agencies. It has also been identified that people require easily accessible information about how to best facilitate this involvement, including advice on what has taken place in the past so that new initiatives can build on previous experience rather than having to start from scratch.

The Partnership

This project aims to stimulate more and better community engagement in local planning and regeneration initiatives by: •Improving local library and internet resources on community engagement in local planning and regeneration (Hastings and Rother; past, present and future) in line with the 3-year strategy of the Coastal Regeneration Research Centre. •Creating a model for a generic, local resource about community engagement in planning which could be adopted by others

This seed fund will enable planning and provide a focus for sharing knowledge and practice on community town planning. Through this partnership we hope to run scoping and feasibility work on an internet resource and the production of a draft development plan, leading to training programmes and research at University Centre Hastings (UCH) as well as establishing a planning and regeneration section in the UCH library.

In the short term this project will stimulate interest in community engagement within planning and provide a hub for sharing information and practice. This will benefit a significant amount of people who are actively involved in planning and regeneration issues, both in the local community and in the university. We eventually endeavour this partnership to improve the quality of planning in Hastings & St Leonards; assisting improvements to the economy and the environment and benefitting the entire population (c70,000), as well as visitors.

Project Partners

Initial Partners: •Nick Wates Associates (NWA) – project management, feasibility work, editing documents. •Hastings Trust (HT) - Steering Group •Hastings Voluntary Action (HVA) – Steering Group, networking, conference.

•Samer Bagaeen and Frank Rallings – liaison with town planning course, conference

•Peter Ambrose – Steering Group, liaison with University Centre Hastings (UCH)Sarah Friend – Steering Group, physical resource at UCH library

Additional partners:

• Jo Bevan - student volunteering

• Hastings Borough Council (HBC), Jane Jackson – Steering Group

• Green IT Company - digital resource feasibility

To read the project evaluation click here