Finderne Community Action Plan,

Moray

Working with Athena Solutions and Strategy Story this project aims to help the newly-formed Finderne Development Trust (FDT) put together a 20-year plan for community-led development in the area.

Stretching between Forres and Dava, and encompassing a series of smaller settlements including Edenkillie, Rafford, Logie and Darnaway, ‘Finderne’ is interesting in many ways.

As well as including arguably the most beautiful stretch of the River Findhorn (from which Finderne takes its name) the area has 33% forest cover, made up of relatively slow-growing hard and softwood forests. Its position to the north of the Cairngorms also gives it a fairly warm climate in summer and relatively cold, dry winters. It is criss-crossed by numerous paths and cycleways, including the long-distance Dava Way, and the majority of the land sits within four very large, very old estates.

A series of community consultations were held to find out what were the needs of residents and visitors. This used tools including the Place Standard Tool, a large format Ordnance Survey map, one-to-one conversations and ‘Postcards from the Future’ (an idea borrowed from artists Wave Particle).

From this work a series of broad priorities were identified and tested with FDT and the community to ultimately lead to a final set of projects and timescales.