The first task undertaken by the steering group was awareness raising of the purpose of the plan, followed by understanding the key concerns of our residents. The next stage of engagement was to work with the community to determine what we needed to protect, adapt and transform. These stages built on each other and the final product was a set of priority objectives. Working in this way has enabled the steering group to undertake analysis and gather evidence which will underpin the plan.
The overarching vision for this model of NDP development was therefore to encourage place making; creating a sense of belonging, ownership and shared purpose – community cohesion. Two fundamental ways of achieving this were agreed as
- Identifying a picture of place and
- Public & stakeholder engagement throughout / engaging the community
Picture of Place engaged the community in order to raise awareness, invite creative input and inform the NDP process, particularly with children through work at Portreath School and Preschool. The children walked around the village in January 2019, led by an expert guide and volunteers to identify places important to them to sketch/photograph/talk about.
Children were then asked to bring in their own photos, images or to draw themselves- to be inspired by. The photographs of old and new Portreath were collected and put on display in the School Hall together with other local artwork. The children then developed images of choice to be turned into printing block as part of the school - work for today. The Artwork has been collated and used in subsequent school sessions and used for NDP presentations.
Children’s Comments were gathered during the block printing and mono printing sessions. Audiotapes and photographs are compiled as part of the evidence base but comments of particular relevance to landscape matters featured highly. Similarly, residents of Harbour House Residential Home were consulted and opinions gathered to present a richer and balanced understanding of the neighbourhood over time.
This fed into The Phase 1 Report entitled 'Creating a Vision of Place and Engaging our Community' which can can be found here