Over the last 12 months, our community has been busy preparing a Plan for the future.
The Plan is now finished and we’re awaiting its registration as our Local Place Plan.
It will be our shared agenda for a bright future: guiding what we do as a community and influencing public services and private investment.
Most importantly, it’s our Plan. We decided what should be in it. But we need to work with others to make it happen.
HOW WE GOT HERE
A lot of work goes into preparing a community-led plan. Here’s a timeline from the very start:
Kinlochleven Community Action Group established and apply for funding
Highland Council awarded funding to the CAG to prepare a community-led Local Place Plan
Initial public meeting to work out how to involve everybody in the village.
Village ideas day to understand everyone’s ideas for the future, with follow-up online survey
Village solutions day to work out how to realise the aspirations from the village ideas day
Business and organisations survey to find out what would help them
Schools involvement to make sure that young people have a meaningful input
Draft Plan published for the community to check and improve
Community Council agree changes to the draft Plan following community feedback
Finalised Plan submitted to the Highland Council for registration, with Foreword by local MSP Kate Forbes, Deputy First Minister
Scroll down for more information…
GIVING EVERYBODY A VOICE
We organised an initial public event on 28th November 2023 to ask community groups to help work out the best ways of getting the whole community involved.
Around 35 people dropped in, some as individuals and others from community groups. We were bowled over with everyone’s enthusiasm, ideas and suggestions ! You can see them on the sheets below.
What did we learn? That our first step needed to be a big ideas day for everyone in the village.
VILLAGE IDEAS DAY
The Village Ideas Day on 27th January 2024 was the first step in the community coming together to plan a bright future for the village.
Over 175 local folk, and another 30 residents sharing ideas afterwards using paper and online comments forms. Not a bad turnout for a village of around 700. Excellent locally-made sandwiches and cakes, a bouncy castle, and lots of local stalls and activities no doubt encouraged people!
The information boards and questions shown below were used to ask everyone about the big challenges facing the village: community life, transport, housing, jobs, landscape, climate change and anything else that people could think of. Click on the any of the images to download the full set of boards.
Well over 500 ideas were suggested by 200+ folk. There are lots of exciting suggestions with some clear priorities - a strong basis for working out a plan of action. A big thank you to everyone!
To see all the comments and interactive summaries, go to the Village Ideas page.
PRIMARY SCHOOL
At the village ideas day, lots of people said young people are the future of the community - and that we need to make sure they have good opportunities in life, from education, jobs and housing to play and recreation.
The first stage of that was giving all pupils in the Primary School the opportunity to contribute.
In March 2024, local community arts group Kinlochlovin’ facilitated an hour-long assembly in the Primary School asking the children what they wanted for the future of the village - using puppet interviews, sand trays, playdough and drawing.
What did the Primary School children want for their community? The top things were:
Swimming pool
Animal / wildlife sanctuary
Trampoline park
Soft play house
More restaurants
Big cafe with outdoor seating area
Go karts
Fishing pier
Big play fort
Outdoor cooking area
Our own vets
Skatepark
We might not get all those, but that’s a good list to start with. There are some that chime with things the adults have suggested too - like the big cafe, skatepark and fishing pier.
Check out the ideas on the children’s drawings below - click or tap on each image to zoom in and see the detail:
HIGH SCHOOL
During May and early June, all students from every age group in the High School had the opportunity to shape the plan, led by the Pupil Council using simple questions and activities that they devised and organised themselves.
A big thank you to everyone involved - the Pupil Council, the new head teacher Lauren Morrison, and PSE teacher Michelle du Preez.
You can see a summary of the headline results in the three infographics below. Click on any of them to download a PDF which also includes a full transcription of all responses.
FROM IDEAS TO SOLUTIONS
Our second community event was on Saturday 16th March in the Leven Centre. Over 40 people came out in the spring sunshine to think how to develop the 500+ suggestions emerging from the village ideas day into priorities for action.
To help the discussion, the suggestions and ideas from the village ideas day were shared, with analysis showing the most popular comments - information which is also available on the village ideas webpage.
Then, based on careful study of those ideas, potential priorities and proposals were drawn out for people to comment on. These covered:
Out and about: pavements and public spaces, paths, access to the loch, restore natural habitats, community growing space.
Public services: schools, healthcare, local services, public transport, community transport.
Jobs and business: tourism, ways into work, workspace and premises, local childcare, Mamore Lodge.
Homes: affordable starter homes, upgrade rented homes, energy efficient homes, no more empty homes.
Community action: what’s on info, community activities, rebuild community spirit, community empowerment.
You can see the display boards and questions by scrolling through the thumbnails below. Click or tap on any of the larger images to see more detail:
The aim was not to give a complete list of actions. It was to stimulate people to think what could be achieved, and encourage them to add things that were missing or amend things that aren’t quite right. We didn’t expect to get it right first time!
You can see people’s suggestions on the potential actions by scrolling through the thumbnails below. Please note that this is simply a transcription of people’s comments from the event - it is not the draft Plan! Click or tap on any of the larger images to see more detail:
If you’d like to download all of those suggestions and more details about the event, click or tap here or on the image of the report cover below:
As part of the event on 16th March, there was also a breakout discussion for anybody who was interested to think beyond individual projects to the bigger picture - what kind of village do we want in 10 years’ time?
No decisions were reached, but the suggestions included tackling depopulation, retaining and attracting young people, sustainable tourism that creates good quality jobs, an eco-friendly village, better promotion of businesses, and for the Plan to includes action on inequalities, health and wellbeing.
We’ll return to these discussions when we get to the draft Plan stage in the summer.
CALLING all BusinessES and community groups
What would make your life easier in Kinlochleven?
Whether you work from home on your own, run a business with staff, or are a community organisation - you’re all important to the village and all your suggestions are important!
Please visit bit.ly/KinlochlevenBusinessSurvey to tell us what would help you.
ACTION STATIONS
Not everything needs to wait for the Plan to be finished!
Simply getting started on the Plan gave impetus for action. It meant that by May 2024 good progress had been on several priorities flagged up at the village ideas day:
LochaBus - the local community bus - has been running extra services, including regular door-to-door shopping trips to Fort William and laying on extra services when the Co-op's chiller cabinet was broken. Better publicity is on the way so more people know about the bus.
Village Clean-up on 27th April with drinks and cakes for all - helping to tidy up the village and give more opportunity for the community to meet up and do things together.
New local jobs at Kinlochleven Community Trust, which has secured funding to pay for two new members of staff. That means that we as a community have more capacity to tackle the priorities that emerged from the village ideas day.
Ewen's Room are working on a new Open Doors sessions for parents and toddlers in the Leven Centre, meaning that parents will now be able to talk confidentially about their health and wellbeing. There will be young people from the school, who are studying early years education on placement, to play with the tots.
Green health activities, like free community weekly walks and bike rides, will be restarting soon.
It was great to see such progress even before the Plan was finished.
FINALISING THE PLAN
Based on everyone’s input outlined above, the draft Plan was published for everyone to review in August and September 2024. (You can still see the draft Plan here if you’re interested, although things have moved on since then.)
People could see and comment on the draft Plan online or in the Library, Leven Centre and Community Trust office. A community cafe event was organised in the Leven Centre on Saturday 24th August for anybody who wanted to discuss the plan in person.
The consultation was widely publicised around the village through posters, flyers, the e-bulletin, social media and direct to all school pupils.
A big thank you to the 70 people who commented on the draft Plan, many of them school pupils. Everyone’s comments have helped to refine the Plan, and can be seen in Appendix 5 of the final Plan below.
Kinlochleven Community Council agreed at their meeting on Wednesday 2nd October to submit the finalised Plan to the Highland Council for registration as the community’s Local Place Plan. We’ll update this webpage once the Plan has been registered.
Click the button to see the Plan submitted to the Highland Council: