Our communities’

Aim is to empower folk in their neighbourhoods

with Dundee City Council, she said local areas could not thrive without all the small building blocks that come together to make them work.

She said: “For me, the City Plan is about places and people.

“It’s about the communities people live in, how they feel about the place they live, what it looks like and how it feels.

“Is it attractive? Is there quality housing? Are open spaces wellmaintained? Do people feel safe?

“Part of it is about supporting strong organisations — community councils, neighbourhood representative structures and community regenerational forums.

“It’s about working with people in communities themselves to come up with the best solutions for their area.”

A new scheme of “participatory budgeting” will give local communities even more say in how funds are spent locally on projects such as pothole repairs.

“Third sector” bodies — a blanket term for community organisations and charities such as DVA — are also involved in the City Plan, pioneering schemes to gradually improve communities such as sensory services and befriending projects.

However, Angie said she was under no illusion thathat resiresi dents aren’t alwaysys as engaged as she would uld like, especially as s work at the Waterfront continues.

She said: “DVA is involved in the City Plan as it’s responsible for supporting a strong third sector, and a lot t of that activity takes place out in local areas. Who better to know an area than the people who live there themselves?

“We’ve got a good reputation in Dundee for i nvolving people. However, there are huge efforts ongoing to get people engaged and it’s something we can improve on.”

She added: “Communities i n Dundee may have felt a loose connection to the V&A. I know it’s a target of theirs to have wider community engagement.

“If we can engage with communities, that is good for the city and good for its people. “We want people to feel like these

facilities arear theirs too.”

TOMORROWT we sspeakpe to members ofo Dundee Health Care and Wellbeing Executive Board about plans to tackle obesity, mental health issues and substancest misuse.

THE Dundee Partnership’s City Plan is a new vision for the future, exploring how to make the city a better place in which to live and work. In the second of five interviews with some of the plan’s key figures, Angie Ballantyne, team manager for...