Draft Community Wealth Building Strategy - Your Chance To Have Your Say

30th May 2024

The Highland Council has today (Wednesday 29 May 2024) launched a survey to capture comments on its' draft strategy on Community Wealth Building.

Community Wealth Building provides an alternative approach to economic development and a practical response that aims to keep wealth within a local area. It is often described as a people centred approach to economic development and aims to ensure every area and community can participate in, and benefit from, economic activity.

Chair of The Highland Council's Economy and Infrastructure Committee, Cllr Ken Gowans, said: "The Council administration’s ‘Our Future Highland’ programme places people at its very heart, and through community wealth building we can bring people together to promote wellbeing, reduce inequalities, and deliver improved outcomes for people in Highland.

"The draft strategy we are consulting on sets out our 3-year vision for taking forward and embedding Community Wealth Building into our work plans. The proposed vision for the strategy is to retain greater wealth and maximise spending within and for the communities of the Highlands.

He added: “I encourage people to use the survey to provide their feedback to the draft strategy as this will capture important information that will allow us to be ambitious in establishing the foundations of a brighter and more sustainable future for our communities, particularly our younger generation."

The survey will run until Friday 23 August 2024.

The survey asks people for comments on five key objectives that align with the five pillars of community wealth building.

These are:

Spending - using public spend to deliver community benefit, fair work and build local supply chains.
Fair Employment - ensuring the workforce are in well paid jobs that benefit from an effective voice, security, and flexibility.
Land and Property – ensuring that communities maximise benefit and generate wealth from local land and property.
Financial Power – ensuring that the flows of wealth generated within the local economy works for the wellbeing of communities and businesses.
Inclusive Ownership – stimulating the development and growth of locally owned enterprises that generate community wealth.
Under each objective, the draft strategy outlines areas of work that already support Community Wealth Building across Highland and proposed areas for development.

Take part here