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The Dunoon Project Lead and Community Link Lead:

• Set up an Active Travel Steering Group to develop further collaboration and build on existing good practice
• Secured key recommendations from Place and Wellbeing Assessments to be embedded in future plans
• Directed a focus on inequality groups in the engagement process
• Promoted embedding the Place and Wellbeing Outcomes in the development of partners plans

A key focus has been on the development of an Active Travel Behaviour Change Plan that is led by evidence, targeted community engagement and is co-produced by local partners. The intention is that the Plan will serve as a guiding document for statutory and third sector organisations looking to invest in and support active travel in the area.

Active Travel Place and Wellbeing Outcome

Everyone can:

• easily move around using good-quality, accessible, well-maintained and safe wheeling, segregated walking and cycling routes and access secure bike parking.
• wheel, walk and cycle through routes that connect homes, destinations and public transport, are segregated from, and prioritised above, motorised traffic and are part of a local green network

Background to the work

Active travel has been a particular focus of the Local Project Town work in Dunoon, stemming from recommendations in two Place and Wellbeing Assessments, as well as wider work already ongoing locally. Over the last year, the Shaping Places for Wellbeing Programme has been supporting collaboration both within the Council between Transformation and Economic Growth, Strategic Transportation and Community Planning; and with Health and Social Care Partnership Health Improvement and the Dunoon Community Development Trust.

The two Shaping Places for Wellbeing Place and Wellbeing Assessments, Dunoon Waterfront Levelling Up Bid and the Active Travel Hub highlighted the need for greater alignment of active travel projects and a more in depth understanding of how people move around Dunoon and what the barriers are. It was also acknowledged that there could be enhanced understanding of how the inequality groups, highlighted through the Programme, could benefit from investment.

The full assessment reports can be read on our Place and Wellbeing Assessment pages.

While the Levelling Up Bid wasn’t successful, there was still an ambition in the council to support investment in the waterfront area in Dunoon, through other smaller infrastructure projects. The Transformation Projects and Economic Growth Manager, a member of the Shaping Places for Wellbeing Programme Steering Group, was keen to consider how the recommendations could be taken forward by those projects. Initial discussions with the Project Lead identified the Strategic Transportation Team in the council as a partner to collaborate with, especially as there was an existing partnership with the Dunoon Community Development Trust for the delivery of the Active Travel Hub in Dunoon.

Developing an Active Travel Behaviour Change Plan

To support collaboration and guide the process, the Project Lead set-up a small Active Travel Steering Group including the Community Development Trust, Council Strategic Transportation team, Community Development, Health and Social Care Partnership Health Improvement and Shaping Places for Wellbeing Programme. The partners contributed their knowledge, local insight, expertise, funding and time to the process and discussions guided by the Project Lead and Community Link Lead, identified the benefit of having an Active Travel Behaviour Change Plan. This Plan would support the work of all partners to target small scale active travel interventions that met local need and addressed barriers experienced by inequality groups.

The Dunoon Community Development Trust were awarded a grant from Argyll & Bute Council to create the Plan and facilitate an in-depth engagement process that would inform it. Their local knowledge and expertise in working with the community was recognised as invaluable to the process and they were also able to build the engagement on the back of an Active Travel Network, which they had been running. The Trust used a wide range of methods to broaden the reach of their engagement, particularly with the key inequality groups identified through the project. This included employing local residents as community connectors to have conversations with community groups, people in the street and neighbours. Support from the Community Link Lead  included analysing the data being gathered, directed targeted engagement of people missing from the conversation, particularly inequality groups.

The development of the plan was informed by the Place and Wellbeing Outcomes and the ideas generated touch on all of the different Outcome themes such as the quality of streets and spaces, connections to public transport, feeling safe and care and maintenance of civic spaces. For example, identifying that people would like to do more walking, but they don’t know where to go or have anyone to go with. The Active Travel Behaviour Change Plan has captured a wide range of project ideas including research, signage, community activities, campaigns, events and training. The plan also identifies potential partnerships through which to develop funding applications and explore delivery options, as well as further engagement and collaborative action through the Active Travel Network.

Impact of the Partnership Working

The Plan and process behind it, is part of the wider work of the Shaping Places for Wellbeing Programme and partners to encourage and promote new ways of working that enables the wellbeing of a place and reduces inequality. This can include support to target resources, identify suitable funding, facilitate collaboration, make connections between groups and highlight those most impacted by inequality. The insight and partnership work will also feed into the Local Place Plan being developed by the Community Development Trust, as active travel was their first theme, the next ones being housing and climate change.

Another outcome of this shared approach is that the Community Development Team have been able to support the allocation of UK Shared Prosperity Fund to a proposal identified through the process. The funding will be used to enable an active travel behaviour change, such as removing barriers for identified inequality groups including using and maintaining equipment or having people to go with and knowing where to go.

To share the insight gathered alongside previous local engagement, quantitative data and evidence behind the Place and Wellbeing Outcomes on Active Travel, briefings were produced as part of the work of the Shaping Places for Wellbeing Programme to bring the information to life in one document and continue to prompt discussion. A briefing on Active Travel was produced for Dunoon Active Travel Outcome Briefing.

Beyond the guidance and direction of the Shaping Places for Wellbeing Programme, by embedding the work in organisations with a local focus, it supports the ongoing alignment of plans as they develop and continues to bring insight into the process of prioritisation. The collaborative work by a range of partners, that we facilitated, enabled a shared understanding of local priorities, identification of groups with most barriers and most benefit to participating in active travel and motivation to embed the new ways of decision-making about investment in a place.