In Huntly, icecream led a project team working with the local community and Town Team of local leaders to develop a strategic plan for the area. We also provided them with a community capacity-building plan to ensure the community can deliver on it.
The community capacity building plan forged and implemented a two-pronged approach - firstly for the Town Team members and their organisations to improve collaboration and partnership working within the Town Team and secondly to develop the capacity of the wider community and volunteers by ensuring the community-wide offer and training opportunities were both relevant, appropriate and working towards the bigger aims of the strategic plan. A structured programme of workshops and initial one-to-one meetings coincided with ongoing capacity-building needs assessment. This included mentoring participants of local organisations and the wider community in developing their approaches.
The community capacity building plan forged and implemented a two-pronged approach - firstly for the Town Team members and their organisations to improve collaboration and partnership working within the Town Team and secondly to develop the capacity of the wider community and volunteers by ensuring the community-wide offer and training opportunities were both relevant, appropriate and working towards the bigger aims of the strategic plan. A structured programme of workshops and initial one-to-one meetings coincided with ongoing capacity-building needs assessment. This included mentoring participants of local organisations and the wider community in developing their approaches.
The town centre had experienced a decade-long decline of commercial businesses that once formed the key identity of the rural market town itself. Having captured the initial perceptions, visions, and aspirations that local people had for the town, we directly supported temporary community action to show the potential for change and build the experience of doing things differently. This saw icecream gaining access to several vacant buildings on the town’s main square. After a handful of temporary pop-up events (supporting the strategy) in two buildings, we then negotiated a fixed six-month contract with RBS for their former bank branch at a peppercorn rent. This was a fully serviced building in reasonable condition and allowed community organisations and individuals alike to see the potential repurposing spaces could offer. Based on the success of the pilot, the community secured funding from the Scottish Land Fund to purchase the building for long-term use, with the confidence that the space would be a vital asset going forward.
In the 24 months following completion, local organisations invested £117k in projects and actions arising from the plan and - with the backing of the strategy - managed to leverage an additional £3m of external capital investment and community ownership of 3 key buildings on the town square. In 2019 we led a specific masterplan in the town focused on an enhanced campus of learning and leisure facilities via a co-design process. In 2023, we worked with Aberdeenshire Council on an update of the Room to Thrive Strategy and the management of £25k seed funding to support new project strands across the town.