(From The Orcadian dated October 11, 2001)

Community councils in the West Mainland are to be consulted on plans to create a special development group for the area.

A key task of the proposed group would be to draw up a community development plan for the West Mainland.

The idea came from a meeting held in Dounby recently as part of an ongoing drive to try and identify the issues of most importance to local communities.

Forming part of the Community Learning Strategy for Orkney, the overall aim of the initiative is to work with communities to help them achieve their specific goals.

Orkney Islands Council’s community education workers for the West Mainland, Bill Innes and Walter Gorman, launched the process earlier this year by holding small focus meetings in the different parishes.

Comprehensive lists of the issues relevant to each community at that time were drawn up. The information was then gathered together and where a topic or issue came up frequently it was taken as a general theme and created the outline for the draft list of West Mainland issues.

Seven issues emerged as topics that people all over the West Mainland felt were important. The seven issues: Information and technology, business and tourism, learning about your community, community health and safety, social exclusion, community activity, and transport, were taken to the meeting in Dounby last Wednesday, October 3, to try and identify a way forward.

Dr Malcolm Graves, community education team leader with the OIC, said: “During the evening, community and agency representatives discussed and clarified each issue in turn and highlighted the main points and particular issues in their areas. It was agreed that the seven issues were all priorities for the West Mainland, but how to tackle all of these issues was the burning question.”

According to Dr Graves, it was felt that a West Mainland community development plan would allow local people to have more say and a better idea of how they wanted their area to develop. A good development plan would take in all the issues discussed at the meeting and therefore represented a valuable and pratical next step forward.

“To develop a plan, it was agreed that a development group should be formed which was representative of the whole area,” he explained. “The council’s department of development and protective services and community education will now take the necessary steps to move this forward.

“Together they will write a proposal representing the views of the meeting, which will go to community councils for consultation and hopefully to gather ideas on how the communities would like to see this group formed.

Young people also needed to be involved in this process, said Dr Graves. A meeting was due to take place within the next few weeks to give young people from the community an opportunity to discuss issues and contribute towards the development plan, he added.