If you’d like to find out more about the Sustaining Choices programme, click here.

Training

In May we jumped into preparing for the upcoming engagements. PAS training modules included SP=EED and the Place Standard. This covered skills to help participants to confidently run both face to face and online sessions. SP=EED is our own practical guide and toolkit to engage communities with planning processes. The Place Standard training introduced the groups to the Place Standard tool and how to apply it as part of their community engagement.

The groups 

Six groups were selected to take part in Sustaining Choices this year. As part of Sustaining Choices we run an online session to help the community groups see how a Place Standard session can be facilitated. As part of this PAS volunteers support the smooth running of these sessions by being tech support and facilitating breakout rooms. We are grateful to every volunteer who offers their time to help. So far we’ve run successful workshops with the Oban, Meat Market Regeneration (Glasgow), and the Garnock Valley groups. The Garnock Valley, Meat Market Regeneration and Glasgow Eco Trust groups have also involved their communities in face-to-face sessions. We’re excited to see what data comes back over the summer to be analysed and incorporated into an active travel plan. 

What we’re learning 

Now that the significant Covid-19 restrictions have been lifted the community groups taking part in this year’s Sustaining Choices cohort are making the most of face-to-face activity. For example, the Meat Market Regeneration project facilitated a Place Standard workshop at a local census event, making the most of the participants who had come along. Other groups such as Oban are preparing interactive sessions in the town centre, including walk ‘n’ talk sessions. The Ullapool group has booked out local spaces to host evening workshops. Being able to meet people is helping the groups to learn more about their communities’ experiences of place and explore their ideas for improvement. 

What’s next 

Over the next few weeks, the groups will continue to collect data through local engagement activity. Once this data in collated they will return it to PAS so that we can analyse the information and pull-out key themes and ideas. We want to make sure that these ideas are representative of the community and to identify priorities for action. To do this we will host online delivery events for each area in the autumn. We will invite members of the community to come along and hear about what has happened so far and to see a summary of the data analysis. Exploration of the themes and identification of the priorities will then be facilitated to inform the final Active Travel and Sustainable Transport action plan. 

Sustaining Choices is part funded by the Smarter Choices, Smarter Places fund. 

To find out more about Sustaining Choices please get in touch with Erin Fulton (Community Development Manager), erin@pas.org.uk