Kincardine residents got a tantalising glimpse of how a specialist team can help the town build a new future in the wake of the closure of Longannet.
The Coalfields Regeneration Trust won Scottish Government backing to hold a charrette in the town and put together a £40,000 funding package to engage architects Oliver Chapman and Associates to deliver the intensive community involvement exercise.
Launching the venture, organised in the wake of the closure of the power station a year ago, community planning expert Kevin Murray said: “We want to help local people invent a new future for Kincardine and with our help build that into a series of projects that can attract external funding to make sure they happen.”
A charrette is an intensive way of working that brings together local people, organisations and businesses to discuss how they would like their area to look and develop into a better place to live work and visit.
The team from Chapmans will spend the next two months on research before cramming six months work into an intensive four-day series of community planning consultations from June 7.
Over the four days the team will arrange walking tours of Kincardine for local people to help them see their surroundings through fresh eyes.
They will also run intensive feedback and discussion sessions to identify and refine ideas, and they will go into the local primary school to get pupils to write postcards from the future.
Local resident Andy Willo said: “This was a hugely energetic meeting which got the whole process off to a very good start.
“It’s really exciting that the community has this opportunity to reshape its future in the post Longannet era”.
Bob Young, Scottish trustee of the Coalfields Regeneration Trust, added: “The views, hopes and aspirations of local people will form the lifeblood of this project and our priority now is to ensure that all strands of the local community get involved in the process.”
