LAG­GAN

Lag­gan Com­munity Action Plan:

Look­ing to 2030

Com­piled Autumn 2022

Sup­por­ted by Lag­gan Com­munity Council Lag­gan Forest Trust Lag­gan Com­munity Hous­ing Ltd Lag­gan Vil­lage Hall Lag­gan Heritage

Facil­it­ated by Vol­un­tary Action in Badenoch and Strathspey

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Con­tents

1. Sum­mary 3
2. The Com­munity 4
3. The Pro­cess 6
4. Com­munity Engage­ment 9
5. Sur­vey Responses 9
6. Action Plan – what the com­munity wants 10
7. Next Steps 15
8. Thanks 17
9. Appen­dices 18

i. What do you like about liv­ing in Lag­gan? ii. What changes would you like to see for Lag­gan by 2030?

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1. Sum­mary

In autumn 2022, Lag­gan Com­munity Coun­cil, togeth­er with Lag­gan Forest Trust, Lag­gan Com­munity Hous­ing Ltd, Lag­gan Vil­lage Hall and Lag­gan Her­it­age, decided that they wished to carry out a review of the com­munity action plan for the vil­lage, which had been pre­vi­ously under­taken in 2019. The pur­pose of revis­it­ing and updat­ing the plan was primar­ily aimed at giv­ing these key com­munity organ­isa­tions, along with a range of oth­er groups in the vil­lage, plus pub­lic and private sec­tor stake­hold­ers, a strong man­date to move for­ward with tack­ling cur­rent and emer­ging issues, as well as lead­ing on new com­munity pro­jects, iden­ti­fied as pri­or­it­ies by the res­id­ents and busi­nesses of Lag­gan dur­ing the pro­cess in autumn 2022.

With sup­port from Vol­un­tary Action in Badenoch & Strath­spey, the com­munity-led steer­ing group, com­pris­ing rep­res­ent­a­tion from the organ­isa­tions lis­ted above, agreed that they would seek the views of loc­al res­id­ents and busi­nesses on a num­ber of key ques­tions. This was achieved via a sur­vey which was per­son­ally delivered to every house­hold by volun­teers — as a paper copy, which was also access­ible online. In addi­tion, the ques­tions con­tained in the sur­vey were also raised with some tar­geted groups that were iden­ti­fied as being harder to get accurate/​quality inform­a­tion from. This was under­taken by mem­bers of the steer­ing group going out with the sur­vey ques­tions to places and events where it was con­sidered that indi­vidu­als or groups fall­ing into this cat­egory might be approached.

The pro­cess was entitled Lag­gan Com­munity Action Plan: Look­ing to 2030. In pre­vi­ous action plan­ning car­ried out by the com­munity, the focus was on activ­ity mostly last­ing up to a 5‑year span. Giv­en the increased need now to also focus on longer-term goals, par­tic­u­larly in rela­tion to the envir­on­ment and the eco­nomy, the Lag­gan com­munity were asked to con­sider where they and the vil­lage wanted to be by 2030, so gen­er­at­ing, more or less, an 8 to 10-year set of plans and aspirations.

Examples of Laggan’s recent suc­cesses with com­munity pro­jects and action plan­ning include:

1. New play park
2. Paths devel­op­ment
3. Afford­able Housing
4. Keep­ing vil­lage clean, well main­tained and attractive
5. Com­munity Broad­band initiative
6. Pub­lic Toi­lets still open
7. Help­ing Hands scheme
8. Lag­gan Mat­ters newsletter
9. Improved com­mu­nic­a­tions through increase in com­munity social media sites
10. Loc­al Her­it­age Boards
11. Monu­ment improvements

To help add to these achieve­ments, res­id­ents were encour­aged to take part in Laggan’s action plan review in 2022. How­ever, this time round people were invited to think not only about what might be achieved togeth­er, but that the pro­jects the vil­lage was being asked to consider,

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would be ones that would help Lag­gan devel­op a more sus­tain­able future. This is set against a back­drop of life post-Cov­id, the chal­lenge of find­ing new volun­teers plus the chan­ging eco­nom­ic and cli­mate situ­ation we find ourselves in.

Lag­gan com­munity is also in the for­tu­nate pos­i­tion of receiv­ing some Com­munity Bene­fit funds from SSE as a res­ult of the Stronelairg Wind Farm devel­op­ment. Access to that fund and how it is used for future com­munity sus­tain­ab­il­ity is an essen­tial com­pon­ent for any ongo­ing dis­cus­sions the com­munity has with SSE, as well as how the fund is man­aged in forth­com­ing years. The sur­vey out­comes will under­pin a way for­ward by provid­ing the appro­pri­ate mandate.

The Lag­gan com­munity action plan­ning pro­cess adhered to the Nation­al Stand­ards for Com­munity Engage­ment to ensure all of the fol­low­ing ele­ments were fully taken into account dur­ing the com­munity-led initiative:

Impact, Com­mu­nic­a­tion, Meth­ods, Work­ing togeth­er, Plan­ning, Sup­port and Inclusion.

See Sec­tion 4. Com­munity Engage­ment for fur­ther details on the 7 Standards.

2. The Community

The vil­lage of Lag­gan lies at the heart of the Par­ish of Lag­gan on the upper reaches of the River Spey, one of Scotland’s finest fish­ing rivers and approx­im­ately 10 miles from its source. It is loc­ated in the south west of the scen­ic Cairngorms Nation­al Park and falls with­in the High­land Coun­cil loc­al author­ity area. It has a pop­u­la­tion of just over 320 people, liv­ing in approx­im­ately 100 households.

Lag­gan Vil­lage Hall, Lag­gan Wolftrax bike trails, centre and café, Lag­gan Com­munity Hous­ing, Lag­gan Play­park, Lag­gan Cof­fee Bothy, Lag­gan Pot­tery Cof­fee shop & Bunk­house, GP Sur­gery and Lag­gan Par­ish Church, all occupy prom­in­ent phys­ic­al loc­a­tions with­in the com­munity and play sig­ni­fic­ant roles in many aspects of life here.

Over the years Lag­gan has always been a very act­ive and engaged com­munity, deliv­er­ing a sub­stan­tial com­munity bene­fit for its res­id­ents through a con­sid­er­able num­ber of activ­it­ies and ini­ti­at­ives. This is clearly demon­strated through the exist­ence of a suc­cess­ful com­munity broad­band scheme, 6 com­munity-owned houses, its fine vil­lage hall, the com­munity forestry trust, a well-equipped children’s play park, access­ible paths and trails, numer­ous inter­pret­a­tion boards, reg­u­lar com­munity news­let­ter and socially-sup­port­ing help­ing hands scheme. It also boasts Lag­gan Her­it­age, which helps cel­eb­rate the sig­ni­fic­ant his­tory, archae­ology and rich cul­ture of the area: the ​‘45’ and Gen­er­al Wade’s road through the Cor­rieyair­ack Pass; the ancient Pic­tish Fort at Dun Da Lamh (a sched­uled monu­ment site); pip­ing; Gael­ic lan­guage; song; poetry and dance.

Laggan’s land­scape is addi­tion­ally well known for provid­ing the stun­ning set for numer­ous TV and Film loc­a­tions in recent years, which in itself attracts many vis­it­ors each sea­son who wish

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to take part in film tour­ism. Not­able ​‘Lag­gan’ pro­duc­tions include Mon­arch of the Glen which centred on the icon­ic Ard­verikie House and Loch Lag­gan, The Crown and the latest James Bond film — No Time to Die.

The vil­lage and sur­round­ing area is an ideal spot to truly appre­ci­ate the spec­tac­u­lar coun­tryside of this part of the Cent­ral High­lands of Scot­land. There are cyc­ling trails and walk­ing trails for all skill levels and abil­it­ies and the agri­cul­tur­al and forest land­scape has abund­ant wild­life such as red deer, golden eagle, osprey, pine marten and red squir­rels, all of which can be found in the area along with mead­ows of wild flowers and wad­ing birds.

Com­munity Organisations There are a con­sid­er­able num­ber of com­munity organisations/​groups which work for the bene­fit of the com­munity and are almost entirely run by volun­teers. These include: Lag­gan Com­munity Coun­cil, Lag­gan Vil­lage Hall, Lag­gan Forest Trust, Lag­gan Com­munity Hous­ing Ltd, Lag­gan Her­it­age, Lag­gan Par­ish Church, Lag­gan Mat­ters (news­let­ter), Lag­gan Help­ing Hands and the ded­ic­ated small group who keep the vil­lage look­ing attract­ive for res­id­ents and visitors.

Sadly, at the time of com­pil­ing this report, Ger­gask Primary School which serves the whole of Lag­gan com­munity, has recently closed its doors and been moth­balled by High­land Coun­cil until fur­ther notice.

Com­munity Assets Vil­lage Hall Play Park Com­munity Hous­ing War Memori­al Wolftrax Centre and café Pub­lic Toi­lets Pic­nic Site Inter­pret­a­tion Panels

Loc­al Businesses There are a num­ber of loc­al busi­nesses oper­at­ing out of Lag­gan, although cur­rently there is no func­tion­ing Busi­ness Asso­ci­ation to rep­res­ent the com­mer­cial activ­ity in the village.

Lag­gan busi­nesses include hotel and self-cater­ing accom­mod­a­tion, gift and food out­lets. A num­ber of trades­people, togeth­er with farm­ers, crofters, people employed on estates and car­ry­ing out oth­er kinds of envir­on­ment­al work and artis­an indus­tries make up the work­ing heart of this community.

In addi­tion to all of these, the com­munity will also soon be home to a new distillery.

Lag­gan is also a vis­it­or des­tin­a­tion, as men­tioned pre­vi­ously, due to it being firmly on the film tour­ism map, as well as being a great base for tour­ing the area’s many oth­er attrac­tions. It addi­tion­ally lies at the east­ern end of the East High­land Way, long dis­tance footpath.

So there is a lot to appre­ci­ate about Lag­gan, this pic­tur­esque High­land vil­lage of 320 people.

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3. The Process

The Lag­gan com­munity con­sulta­tion peri­od ran from Septem­ber to Novem­ber 2022 and dur­ing this time, the way in which the com­munity action plan­ning pro­cess was car­ried out, broadly fell into four stages. These were:

1) Gath­er­ing Inform­a­tion 2) Data Sort­ing and Col­la­tion 3) Involving People & Refin­ing Ideas 4) Com­munity Action Plan (CAP) doc­u­ment production

With­in the four stages of the pro­cess, the fol­low­ing ques­tions were asked by the steer­ing group.

Gath­er­ing Information

• What do we want to know?
• What ques­tions will we ask?
• What meth­ods will we use?
• How will we do it?

Data Sort­ing

• What does it involve?
• How will we do it?
• Who will do / assist with this?
• In what form will we present it back to the community?

Involving People & Refin­ing Ideas

• What stake­hold­er groups do we need to involve?
• How (& where) will we present the inform­a­tion gathered so far?
• How will people in the com­munity help refine the information?
• Who will assist with this?

CAP doc­u­ment production

• What will it include?
• Who will put it together?
• How will it be presen­ted to the community?
• What hap­pens to it next?

In addi­tion, the steer­ing group also con­sidered what times­cales and key dates they wanted to aim for and how they would deal with Com­mu­nic­a­tions & Pub­li­city — ensur­ing that these ele­ments were robust, so the pro­cess was as inclus­ive as it could be.

The fifth and most cru­cial stage of the whole action plan­ning ini­ti­at­ive, involves deliv­ery of the plan by the Lag­gan com­munity and oth­er stake­hold­ers. Essen­tially this deals with ques­tions such as:

• Who will take respons­ib­il­ity for the CAP?
• How will it be driv­en forward?
• How will it be mon­itored and evaluated?

There is more detail on how this can be achieved in Sec­tion 7. Next Steps. Lag­gan Com­munity Action Plan: Look­ing to 2030 Page 6 of 20

Gath­er­ing Information There was a lot of dis­cus­sion about the nature and pre­cise word­ing of ques­tions in the sur­vey, as the steer­ing group wanted to revis­it ques­tions asked in pre­vi­ous com­munity-led action plan­ning, to re-estab­lish what spe­cif­ic things people liked about Lag­gan and wanted to keep in the vil­lage. They also wished to encour­age the com­munity to look to an 8 to 10- year hori­zon, and con­sider how Lag­gan might tackle some of the trick­i­er issues such as care for the envir­on­ment, sup­port­ing young­er and older res­id­ents, employ­ab­il­ity and trans­port. So ques­tions were employed which were broadly framed, to allow respon­ders to bring up a wide range of issues and ideas without being led.

The paper ver­sion covered just two sides of A4 and the sur­vey asked 3 ques­tions: 1) What do you like about liv­ing in Lag­gan? 2) What changes would you like to see for Lag­gan by 2030? (Per­haps con­sider how as indi­vidu­als, or as a com­munity, we can improve the envir­on­ment, address the cli­mate emer­gency, devel­op our loc­al eco­nomy, increase social and leis­ure oppor­tun­it­ies and widen loc­al cul­tur­al experiences) If you could improve just ONE of these things, what would it be? 3) Are there any new pro­jects (large or small) that you would like to see hap­pen­ing in the com­munity? Or any exist­ing pro­jects that need to be sustained?

The sur­vey also asked:

Would you be will­ing to get involved in any pro­jects you are inter­ested in? YES / NO If Yes, please provide con­tact details.

This last addi­tion­al ques­tion was included to try to encour­age more people to come for­ward to help with pro­jects that were of par­tic­u­lar interest to them, in order to coun­ter­act the reduc­tion in volun­teer num­bers, that had come about in recent years and espe­cially fol­low­ing the pandemic.

It was decided that all house­holds would receive a paper copy of the sur­vey through their let­ter­box and this was car­ried out by a team of com­munity volun­teers, who over a peri­od of a few days, delivered 120 cop­ies out into the com­munity. This meth­od helped to deliv­er an inclus­ive pro­cess of com­munity engage­ment, where every­one had the oppor­tun­ity to respond to the sur­vey if they wished and they were able to do this via hard copy, which could be depos­ited back into one of the cent­rally loc­ated sur­vey boxes, or online via QR code which enabled the com­munity to access the sur­vey on a range of devices.

Data Sort­ing All of the responses came in either online via Sur­vey Mon­key, by hard copy into CAP-branded boxes left at loc­a­tions in the vil­lage, or from inform­a­tion col­lated at events put on for spe­cif­ic groups in the vil­lage. Sur­veys were returned from the village’s sec­ond­ary school pupils and these responses high­lighted the ideas and opin­ions of Laggan’s young people.

Every com­ment was recor­ded and cat­egor­ised, so that every­one would be able to ​‘see’ their voice in the dis­played res­ults. The inform­a­tion was sor­ted into 3 main themes: Social, Envir­on­ment­al and Eco­nom­ic and the num­ber of times a par­tic­u­lar issue or idea was men­tioned was noted, so pri­or­it­ies could rise to the top of the lists in each themed category.

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These lists were then pre­pared for dis­play (see Sec­tion 6. Action Plan – what the com­munity wants and Sec­tion 9. Appen­dices), so every mem­ber of the com­munity could see what had been said and get involved in the next stage, when ideas were refined and solu­tions to issues sought.

Involving People & Refin­ing Ideas The pro­cess cul­min­ated in Laggan’s Big Con­ver­sa­tion, which took place over 3 days in Novem­ber 2022 at the Vil­lage Hall. At this exten­ded drop in event, the res­ults were offered back to the com­munity and time giv­en for reflec­tion and dis­cus­sion around the top­ics. Dur­ing the 3 days, all of the res­id­ents who atten­ded were asked to con­sider the top pri­or­it­ies that had been iden­ti­fied from the pro­cess under the head­ings of Laggan:

• A Socially Con­nec­ted Community
• A Cli­mate Con­scious Community
• An Eco­nom­ic­ally Thriv­ing Community

They were asked to look at those areas of par­tic­u­lar interest to them and write on action plan tem­plates aimed at refin­ing ideas by look­ing at ques­tions such as: What spe­cif­ic action needs to be taken to achieve this pri­or­ity and Who needs to be involved?

CAP doc­u­ment production All of the com­ments and pieces of inform­a­tion giv­en by the pub­lic dur­ing the Big Con­ver­sa­tion event were col­lec­ted and incor­por­ated into this report, which now belongs to the Lag­gan com­munity and will be used as the basis for ongo­ing com­munity devel­op­ment in the vil­lage over the next 10 years, with sup­port from the community’s organ­isa­tions and all oth­er rel­ev­ant stake­hold­ers from the pub­lic, private and vol­un­tary sector.

Also a list of all those who came for­ward offer­ing to volun­teer their help with cer­tain pro­jects was com­piled and will be held by the team tak­ing the action plan for­ward (referred to as Team Lag­gan for the pur­poses of this report).

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4. Com­munity Engagement

The Nation­al Stand­ards for Com­munity Engage­ment are good-prac­tice prin­ciples designed to improve and guide the pro­cess of com­munity engagement.

They are clear prin­ciples that describe the main ele­ments of effect­ive com­munity engage­ment. They provide detailed per­form­ance state­ments that every­one involved can use to achieve the highest qual­ity res­ults and the greatest impact.

The stand­ards are par­tic­u­larly help­ful for com­munit­ies — their organ­isa­tions and groups — to help them involve their

mem­bers or the wider com­munity in shap­ing the ser­vices and changes they need, and to make sure they accur­ately rep­res­ent mem­bers’ or the community’s views in the decision- mak­ing processes.

5. Sur­vey Responses

Thanks go to the 87 res­id­ents and house­hold­ers in the Lag­gan area who con­trib­uted so mean­ing­fully and thought­fully to the com­munity sur­vey – this num­ber rep­res­ents nearly 27% of the Lag­gan (par­ish-wide) com­munity pop­u­la­tion. Also to the 30+ people who atten­ded the Big Con­ver­sa­tion drop-in events at the vil­lage hall.

For a full list of what came out of the sur­vey responses, see Sec­tion 9. Appen­dices (list of appen­dices below). These show all com­ments made by the com­munity in answer to the sur­vey ques­tions, pri­or­it­ised in order of the num­ber of people who men­tioned them.

Appendix i What do you like about liv­ing in Lag­gan Appendix ii What changes would you like to see for Lag­gan by 2030?

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6. Action Plan – what the com­munity wants

Pro­ject Themes and Priorities The CAP sets out the community’s vis­ion for the longer term (up to 10 years) with more detailed activ­ity across the 3 spe­cified themes:

• A Socially Con­nec­ted Community
• A Cli­mate Con­scious Community
• An Eco­nom­ic­ally Thriv­ing Com­munity itemising pri­or­ity out­comes and actions which are shown in the rel­ev­ant tables below.

It is import­ant to note that some of the pro­ject out­comes will be a ​“quick win” where­as oth­ers will some­times take sig­ni­fic­antly more time to plan and execute. To achieve res­ults and out­comes in the short, medium/​longer term each high pri­or­ity project/​outcome will have its own activ­ity plan which will be Spe­cif­ic, Meas­ur­able, Achiev­able, Real­ist­ic and Timely (SMART) and determ­ined and agreed in the first part of the CAP implementation.

The 3 themes were taken and put into sep­ar­ate group­ings, show­ing what the pri­or­it­ies are for each theme. With­in each pri­or­ity, pro­jects have been lis­ted that have been drawn from the high pri­or­it­ies that came out of the sur­vey data. Fur­ther views and inform­a­tion for each pri­or­ity were sought from those who atten­ded the drop-in events and sug­ges­ted actions, togeth­er with any addi­tion­al inform­a­tion are out­lined below each section.

LAG­GAN: A SOCIALLY CON­NEC­TED COMMUNITY

Pri­or­ity: Sus­tain­able com­munity spaces, deliv­er­ing for com­munity needs Make more of com­munity facil­it­ies eg Vil­lage Hall, Wolftrax café, Church for

• Resi­li­ence eg Warm Spaces, power outages
• Social & leis­ure activities
• Sport & exer­cise oppor­tun­it­ies for all ages
• Food lar­der / Food exchange

Pri­or­ity: Sus­tain­able pub­lic trans­port provision

• To con­nect to longer dis­tance pro­vi­sion eg buses & trains
• To get around the Lag­gan area without a car: on-demand type service

Pri­or­ity: Hav­ing afford­able places to live

• Access to more com­munity-owned afford­able hous­ing for loc­al young people: to rent or buy, new or exist­ing stock.
• Com­munity sup­port scheme to help res­id­ents & busi­nesses make their homes more energy efficient/​better insu­lated (double glaz­ing, sol­ar pan­els, heat pumps, smart meters etc)

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PRI­OR­ITY: SUS­TAIN­ABLE COM­MUNITY SPACES, DELIV­ER­ING FOR COM­MUNITY NEEDS

Make more of com­munity facil­it­ies eg Vil­lage Hall, Wolftrax café, Church for: Resi­li­ence eg Warm Spaces, power outages

• Put togeth­er a com­munity resi­li­ence plan

Social & leis­ure activ­it­ies / Sport & exer­cise oppor­tun­it­ies for all ages

• Start a social Lag­gan Cycle Club, per­haps based around Wolftrax to include inform­al cycle rides, social even­ings, shar­ing of cycle routes, bike maintenance
• Encour­age / call for volun­teers to organ­ise more activ­it­ies or events in the hall
• Vil­lage Diary on com­munity web­site to include what’s hap­pen­ing at the hall

Food lar­der / Food exchange

• Work with B&S Food Hub and oth­er com­munity food ini­ti­at­ives to main­tain this support

PRI­OR­ITY: SUS­TAIN­ABLE PUB­LIC TRANS­PORT PROVISION

To con­nect to longer dis­tance pro­vi­sion eg buses & trains

• Lobby High­land Coun­cil re crit­ic­al need for con­nectiv­ity to rest of strath (Fort William?)
• Extend ter­minus to Feagour/​Wolftrax. Use of elec­tric buses to reduce costs
• Sur­vey com­munity to under­stand per­son­al bar­ri­ers to use and pri­or­ity time­tabling needs

To get around the Lag­gan area without a car: on-demand type service

• Com­munity pur­chase of elec­tric minibus and employ driver/​s: work­ing group to come up with pro­pos­al (use of SSE money for this high priority?)
• Exten­sion of B&S car scheme to include Laggan

PRI­OR­ITY: HAV­ING AFFORD­ABLE PLACES TO LIVE

Access to more com­munity-owned afford­able hous­ing for loc­al young people: to rent or buy, new or exist­ing stock

• Explore poten­tial sites in the com­munity area (look at LFT land for housing/​crofts)
• Pub­lish timeline for exist­ing hous­ing feas­ib­il­ity study
• Lobby CNPA to allow small group hous­ing development

Com­munity sup­port scheme to help res­id­ents & busi­nesses make their homes more energy efficient/​better insu­lated (double glaz­ing, sol­ar pan­els, heat pumps, smart meters etc)

• Invest­ig­ate advice/​support avail­able set up an inform­a­tion event at hall for loc­al res­id­ents and busi­nesses to drop in
• Explore pos­sible use of SSE money for a scheme

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LAG­GAN: A CLI­MATE CON­SCIOUS COMMUNITY

Pri­or­ity: Act­ive Travel

• Deliv­er walk­ing & cyc­ling paths in com­munity area, includ­ing to Newtonmore
• EV fast char­ging points

Pri­or­ity: Pub­lic Toilets

• Ensure future by bring­ing up to good stand­ard internally
• Look at altern­at­ive meth­ods of waste treatment
• Invest here or else­where to cater for vis­it­ors / camper­van waste dis­charge points

Pri­or­ity: Energy effi­cient housing

• Improve effi­ciency in ten­an­ted and com­munity-owned prop­er­ties through inspec­tion / advice / install­a­tion of energy cost-reduc­tion measures

Pri­or­ity: Improve village’s visu­al appearance

• More benches and attract­ive planting
• Clean up pond area and woods
• Lit­ter picks and more road­side rub­bish bins

PRI­OR­ITY: ACT­IVE TRAVEL

Deliv­er walk­ing & cyc­ling paths in com­munity area, includ­ing to Newtonmore

• Improve path through Black­wood (clear fallen trees, widen path, smooth gradi­ent) for cyc­ling off-road from Feagour to Loch Laggan
• New bridges to enable bikes to use Glen Ban­chor to Cluny Castle right of way
• Push to extend Spey­side Way / con­nect up with East High­land Way
• Increase num­ber of fully access­ible paths as loc­a­tion permits
• Routes to con­nect Bal­gow­an, Catlodge and Strath­mash­ie with vil­lage centre
• Work with landown­ers and Trans­port Scot­land to find accept­able, safe, off-road routes for all
• Include plan­ning for main­ten­ance costs longer-term
• Map of paths in area for loc­als and visitors

EV fast char­ging points

• Invest­ig­ate the pro­cess for installing these in the community
• Ensure all are added to lit­er­at­ure and web­sites to pro­mote where they are for vis­it­ors (ask THC/CNPA for advice)

PRI­OR­ITY: PUB­LIC TOILETS

Ensure future by bring­ing up to good stand­ard internally

• Upgrade (and extend if pos­sible) facil­it­ies. (SSE fund­ing for devel­op­ment, care and maintenance)
• Invest in fin­an­cial sus­tain­ab­il­ity – paddle-gates for charging?
• Sup­port for volun­teers who help keep them open
• Act­ive (paid?) man­age­ment of toi­lets to pro­tect waste disposal

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• Some­how ensure con­trol of wipes etc dis­pos­al – paid waste dis­pos­al units?

Look at altern­at­ive meth­ods of waste treatment

• Sort out sep­tic tank issue (with or without High­land Council)

Invest here or else­where to cater for vis­it­ors & camper­van waste dis­charge points

• Improve sig­nage to show com­munity toi­let facil­it­ies and dis­tance to them (exist­ing or new)
• Identi­fy best site for campervan/​mobile home waste dis­charge points

PRI­OR­ITY: ENERGY EFFI­CIENT HOUSING/COMMUNITY PROPERTIES

Improve effi­ciency in ten­an­ted and com­munity-owned prop­er­ties Includ­ing Vil­lage Hall, through inspec­tion / advice / install­a­tion of energy cost-reduc­tion measures

• Host an Energy Effi­ciency event (with experts) for advice, products, installers and sources of fin­an­cial sup­port. Espe­cially for those with older homes. See point 2 of pre­vi­ous Socially Con­nec­ted pri­or­ity: Hav­ing afford­able places to live – for addi­tion­al details
• Invest­ig­ate oppor­tun­it­ies for a vil­lage tur­bine (elec­tric or hydro)
• Seek fund­ing to invest in Hall upgrade eg energy effi­ciency review & resi­li­ence hub (Loc­al Energy Scotland)

PRI­OR­ITY: IMPROVE VILLAGE’S VISU­AL APPEARANCE

More benches and attract­ive planting

• Stra­tegic cut­ting back of trees and hedgerows to open up views and improve vis­ib­il­ity at road turn­ings (eg old bridge para­pet near church)
• Bench loc­a­tion on way from shop to hall

Clean up pond area and woods

• Volun­teers or paid maintenance?

Lit­ter picks and more road­side rub­bish bins

• Need to ensure bins are emp­tied reg­u­larly to avoid overflow
• Encour­age under­stand­ing and appre­ci­ation of what volun­teers cur­rently do

Addi­tion­al Notes:

• Mark car park spaces on layby (90 degrees to roadside?)
• Improve visu­al appear­ance of hall – inter­pret­a­tion opportunity/​mural?
• Improve sig­nage to hall

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+

LAG­GAN: AN ECO­NOM­IC­ALLY THRIV­ING COMMUNITY

Pri­or­ity: Increase oppor­tun­it­ies to attract tour­ism and busi­ness to the loc­al area

• Invest­ment in ser­viced site for camper­vans, motorhomes, tents
• Make more of a ​‘Wel­come to Lag­gan’ — replace signs (brown/​dated)
• Expan­sion of moun­tain bik­ing facil­it­ies at Wolftrax

Pri­or­ity: Strategy for loc­al jobs and businesses

• Assist­ance for loc­al busi­nesses: pro­vi­sion of small busi­ness units
• Devel­op a Busi­ness Devel­op­ment & Mar­ket­ing Plan to pro­mote Laggan
• Loc­al wood fuel business

PRI­OR­ITY: INCREASE OPPOR­TUN­IT­IES TO ATTRACT TOUR­ISM & BUSI­NESS TO LOC­AL AREA

Invest­ment in ser­viced site for camper­vans, motorhomes, tents

• Feas­ib­il­ity study to determ­ine num­bers, usage, leg­al struc­ture, man­age­ment and to invest­ig­ate poten­tial loc­a­tions for suit­able site

Make more of a ​‘Wel­come to Laggan’

• Replace dated brown signs – work with Trans­port Scotland

Expan­sion of moun­tain bik­ing facil­it­ies at Wolftrax

• Increase/​promote cycle routes and paths

PRI­OR­ITY: STRATEGY FOR LOC­AL JOBS AND BUSINESSES

Assist­ance for loc­al busi­nesses: pro­vi­sion of small busi­ness units

• Engage with existing/​potential busi­nesses to dis­cov­er extent and type of need
• Need to con­sider loc­al hous­ing avail­ab­il­ity to sup­port growth of loc­al business

Devel­op a Busi­ness Devel­op­ment & Mar­ket­ing Plan to pro­mote Laggan

• Resur­rect the Lag­gan Busi­ness Group
• Form­al­ise the East High­land Way
• New cent­ral sig­nage to all vil­lage points of interest
• Notice­board with vis­it­or inform­a­tion, adverts, loc­al news
• Work with part­ners to enable vis­it­ors to get to and around area bet­ter without a car. Will work for res­id­ents as well.
• Use Lag­gan Her­it­age archive as attrac­tion for vis­it­ors to learn about area (loc­a­tion?)

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Loc­al wood fuel business

• Explore feas­ib­il­ity of this as a project
• Look into loc­al man­age­ment of the forest

7. Next Steps: Delivery

Steps to deliv­er the Lag­gan Com­munity Action Plan The next steps to start work­ing with the action plan and look­ing at how parts can start to be delivered will be sub­ject to some dis­cus­sion with­in Laggan’s com­munity organ­isa­tions, but broadly involves col­lect­ively:

• Set­ting up a Team Lag­gan (see below) to take the plan for­ward. Agree­ing a chair for a spe­cified peri­od at a time, so will rotate after X months or after X meetings
• Agree­ing to adopt the Val­ues and Prin­ciples laid out below
• Agree­ing what pri­or­it­ies will be taken for­ward initially
• Man­aging the pro­ject volun­teer list that has come out of the process
• Involving all key stake­hold­ers (organ­isa­tions & indi­vidu­als) in co-design of pro­ject delivery
• Draw­ing up a more detailed deliv­ery action plan for each pri­or­it­ised pro­ject, identi­fy­ing aims, actions, mile­stones, who needs to be involved, key deliv­er­ables. (VABS has a tem­plate for this.)
• Com­mu­nic­at­ing pro­gress with the community
• Review­ing pro­gress on a reg­u­lar basis
• Revis­it­ing the action plan as required

Val­ues and Principles The fol­low­ing val­ues and prin­ciples will under­pin the way in which this action plan is rolled out and imple­men­ted: 1) A plan for all — it is the respons­ib­il­ity of the whole com­munity (indi­vidu­als and groups) to unite and work togeth­er for pro­ject ambi­tions to be real­ised 2) Trans­par­ency — all ideas should be planned and researched openly with a com­mit­ment to co-pro­duc­tion where groups con­trib­ute to the ideas as they devel­op 3) Part­ner­ship — work­ing togeth­er with a shared agenda will be at the heart of any activ­ity arising from this plan 4) Inclu­sion — every­one is invited to par­ti­cip­ate and every­one bene­fits, regard­less of age and abil­ity 5) Impact — the suc­cess of this plan will be judged on activ­it­ies which have a pos­it­ive influ­ence on people and com­munit­ies 6) Involve­ment — ensur­ing the com­munity is mean­ing­fully involved in decisions that affect their lives.

Team Lag­gan It is very import­ant to ensure the effect­ive deliv­ery of this action plan, for the whole com­munity to work togeth­er to imple­ment it, ie a full vil­lage approach not just one or two organ­isa­tions. This approach has been called Team Lag­gan in this report, but of course the com­munity will decide on its own name for these purposes.

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Team Lag­gan will be the for­um for agree­ing on how the Steps at the start of this sec­tion are taken for­ward, as well as where respons­ib­il­ity will sit in terms of deliv­er­ing on the Val­ues and Prin­ciples out­lined above. It will not have a sep­ar­ate leg­al iden­tity, but simply be a for­um called maybe two or three times a year, per­haps by a rotat­ing chair. It should com­prise as a min­im­um, rep­res­ent­at­ives from the 5 organ­isa­tions who ini­tially steered the action plan­ning pro­cess, togeth­er with any oth­er sig­ni­fic­ant com­munity organisations.

Ongo­ing com­munity engagement A pro­cess for secur­ing com­munity man­dates for pro­jects at key mile­stones is advis­able, so that pro­jects can enjoy broad com­munity sup­port, fol­low best prac­tice in terms of co-design and allow for those who will be most impacted by a project’s deliv­er­ables to be involved in the activity.

Volun­teer lists A list of people who have come for­ward to volun­teer in gen­er­al or for spe­cif­ic pro­jects, has been com­piled from a ques­tion in the sur­vey and also inform­a­tion giv­en by res­id­ents at the Big Con­ver­sa­tion event. The Lag­gan CAP Volun­teer list is a vital part of the action plan­ning pro­cess and those on the list need to be kept informed of how things are being pro­gressed and what part they might be able to play in that.

Levels of Support The sur­veys have giv­en the key com­munity organ­isa­tions in Lag­gan, a lot of detailed inform­a­tion com­ing from a wide sec­tor of the com­munity, regard­ing their thoughts on issues and ideas for pro­jects that they would like to see taken for­ward on their behalf.

The pri­or­it­ies fall into two main groups and will require to be tackled in a dif­fer­ent way:

• pro­jects which, although some are mid to longer term, are pos­sible for the com­munity to take for­ward them­selves, with some min­im­al sup­port from the rel­ev­ant key agen­cies or sup­port organisations.
• large, com­plex issues around employ­ment, hous­ing, trans­port, busi­ness sup­port and infra­struc­ture, where the com­munity will require a great deal of long term assist­ance from vari­ous pub­lic, third and some­times private sec­tor organ­isa­tions in order to take these for­ward and make a not­able difference.

Mon­it­or­ing, Audit­ing and Eval­u­ation of the Com­munity Action Plan Mon­it­or­ing, audit­ing and eval­u­ation are essen­tial require­ments of any Com­munity Action Plan to ensure it is being imple­men­ted. Team Lag­gan will meet reg­u­larly to review pro­gress on the plan. Keep­ing records against each theme and pro­ject will be a use­ful tool to ensure pro­gress is being main­tained. These meet­ings will be open and access­ible to all groups and indi­vidu­als. Eval­u­ation provides an oppor­tun­ity to reflect and learn from activ­it­ies, assess the out­comes and effect­ive­ness of a pro­ject and think about new ways of doing things.

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8. Thanks & Acknowledgements

Thanks for all their involve­ment and hard work in help­ing to make the pro­cess a suc­cess must go to:

• Lag­gan Com­munity Council
• Lag­gan Forest Trust
• Lag­gan Com­munity Hous­ing Ltd
• Lag­gan Heritage
• Lag­gan Vil­lage Hall
• All the deliv­ery volun­teers who put sur­veys through every household’s door

Vol­un­tary Action in Badenoch and Strath­spey (VABS), as an inde­pend­ent com­munity and volun­teer­ing devel­op­ment char­ity, sup­por­ted the Lag­gan com­munity through this com­munity action plan­ning pro­cess and facil­it­ated the steer­ing group meet­ings, but always fol­low­ing the community’s lead in how they wished to proceed.

Com­munity Action Plan­ning (CAP) is car­ried out with all of the Cairngorms Nation­al Park com­munit­ies on a reg­u­lar basis at the community’s request. Fund­ing to VABS to facil­it­ate the com­munit­ies’ CAP pro­cess is provided by the Cairngorms Nation­al Park Authority.

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9. Appen­dices

Appendix i What do you like about liv­ing in Laggan?

• Beau­ti­ful place: views, sur­round­ing coun­tryside, land­scape and chan­ging seasons
• Good friendly people — there to help a hand if needed eg Lag­gan Help­ing Hands
• Small com­munity feel with a sense of belonging
• Easy access to out­doors, wild open spaces, walk­ing, cyc­ling, kayak­ing, the hills
• Great med­ic­al facil­it­ies: first class GP practice
• The Cof­fee Bothy & Pot­tery Cof­fee shops
• Amen­it­ies such as Wolftrax: good com­munity involvement
• Wild­life on door­step (squir­rels, otters, birds of prey, wildcats)
• Lots of heritage
• Loc­al com­munity events / com­munity involvement
• Rur­al location
• Avail­ab­il­ity of loc­al busi­nesses for loc­als and tourism
• Rel­at­ively easy access to prin­cip­al trans­port links (A9, railway)
• In strik­ing dis­tance of Cent­ral Belt by car, close to long dis­tance bus and train facilities
• Cre­ag Mea­gaidh NNR
• Great inter­na­tion­al mix of vis­it­ors in sum­mer: encour­ages mutu­al respect and consideration

Appendix ii What changes would you like to see for Lag­gan by 2030?

• Make more of our com­munity hubs: Vil­lage Hall, Wolftrax Centre, Church; as com­munity resi­li­ence hubs with some winter even­ing activ­it­ies and events
• Use Hall for Warm Space pro­ject for people badly affected by energy and cost of liv­ing crisis.
• A thriv­ing vil­lage hall more used by loc­als, with updated facil­it­ies and a wide vari­ety of reg­u­lar events and leis­ure activ­it­ies for all ages, to pro­mote com­munity well-being (sum­mer vil­lage fair?).
• Like all things in a small com­munity, it depends on loc­als to run these events, which needs a push for more volun­teer support
• Vil­lage Hall has many overnight(s) lets from walk­ers, cyc­lists, army etc — oppor­tun­it­ies for meal provision?
• Sus­tain­able pub­lic trans­port solu­tion, to con­nect Lag­gan with oth­er parts of the strath. Com­munity bus/​taxi?
• Insu­la­tion and energy effi­ciency programme/​support for loc­al housing
• Afford­able hous­ing pro­ject to be accelerated
• Pro­mote food larder/​food exchange to help those in need and reduce waste
• More seat­ing along road from shop towards hall, to encour­age people to stop and chat and meet people with­in their com­munity (espe­cially eld­erly). That empty length of road tends to isol­ate one end of the vil­lage from the oth­er. Bench seats could be built into the bank/​bolted down and have a story asso­ci­ated with each one.
• Reduce hol­i­day home own­er­ship — com­munity is slowly dying

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• Make Lag­gan a Dis­abled-Friendly Community
• Signs to Play­park from road end to encour­age people to use it
• Climb­ing wall at Wolftrax
• Sus­tain­able mod­el to sup­port eld­erly care at home
• A loc­al cyc­ling group or ram­bling group (sim­il­ar to Kin­gussie cyc­ling group)

ENVIR­ON­MENT­AL

• Deliv­er on act­ive travel cyc­ling and walk­ing paths through­out the com­munity area, includ­ing con­nec­tion to New­ton­more off-road
• Ensure future of pub­lic toi­lets by bring­ing up to prop­er stand­ard, includ­ing update to waste treatment
• Pro­gramme of insu­la­tion and energy effi­ciency inspec­tions under­taken in all ten­an­ted prop­er­ties and com­munity owned prop­er­ties to reduce energy use and costs
• Improve vil­lage appear­ance with suit­able plant­ing, benches and lit­ter picks
• Bet­ter facil­it­ies for vis­it­ors in caravans/​campers/​tents etc. includ­ing toi­let waste facil­it­ies, gen­er­al waste/​recycling
• Devel­op Hall as a com­munity resi­li­ence hub to cater for the increas­ing like­li­hood of power out­ages. Will require invest­ment in a stand-by gen­er­at­or and neces­sary elec­tric­al works to hall, as well as ongo­ing run­ning and main­ten­ance costs
• Clean up pond area and woods to make into a fant­ast­ic area for wildlife
• Com­munity garden and grow­ing area (poly­tun­nel)
• Dark Sky pro­ject with bet­ter street lamps
• Clear tree branches from street lights and where pave­ments are restric­ted, moss from Ger­gask pavements