A new tool has been published by a consortium of four partners to promote the better understanding of towns and their inter-relationships in Scotland.<\/u><\/p>\n
The Carnegie UK Trust writes:
\n<\/u>A consortium, made up of the Carnegie UK Trust, Scotland’s Towns Partnership, the Centre for Local Economic Strategies (CLES), and the University of Stirling, has unveiled the UK\u2019s first online tool to help understand the facts, figures and interrelationships that underpin all of Scotland\u2019s towns and cities.<\/p>\n
The launch took place in Musselburgh which saw Margaret Burgess MSP, Minister for Housing and Welfare \u2019switch-on\u2019 the new online tool.<\/p>\n
Understanding Scottish Places (USP) answers a pressing need for better quality information to inform important decisions about how communities are organised and funded. It brings together 36,000 different pieces of data about places and people in Scotland into one online, visual, searchable database.\u00a0 From today, anyone can access a full suite of information about any of 479 Scottish communities digitally \u2013 and compare that information with any other place across the country.<\/p>\n
The launch of the new tool comes on the back of an Ipsos MORI survey carried out in March by the Carnegie UK Trust, leaders of the USP consortium, which encouragingly revealed that the majority (54%) of Scots value the services available in their local communities.\u00a0 Many of those questioned recognised the way in which places in Scotland are inter-related and rely on each other for different facilities and services, something that is explored further in USP.\u00a0 Almost 40% revealed that they travel to access the services they require.<\/p>\n
Margaret Burgess MSP, Minister for Housing and Welfare said: \u2018USP is a powerful resource for people working across the country giving them the opportunity to design better strategies for their communities – whether they are in councils, town partnerships or BIDs, traders associations, businesses or community groups.\u00a0 It\u2019s a great tool, ideally positioned to help local people see how their area is working for them and be inspired to get involved in revitalising their towns. \u00a0It is just one of a number of measures that the Scottish Government is backing to help to deliver the Town Centre Action Plan.\u00a0 We hope that this platform will encourage communities to look at other towns with similar characteristics and start to share more of their success stories.\u2019<\/p>\n
Martyn Evans, Chief Executive of the Carnegie UK Trust, joined Margaret Burgess for today\u2019s switch-on, and said: \u2018USP is a valuable tool for all of those invested in making our town\u2019s better places to live.\u00a0 It recognises that different places have different needs, and require different services and resources. It explores the way in which each place has a unique identity and this is how we need to think about places when we design services, invest, and innovate. For the first time, the platform looks at the levels of interdependency between communities, to give us a more sophisticated and constructive picture of how our places work together.\u00a0 In the coming months, we will be consulting further across the whole country, to see what needs to be added to this platform to deepen that understanding and grow the sophistication of the data we can offer.\u2019<\/p>\n
The platform has been designed and built by the Carnegie UK Trust, Scotland\u2019s Towns Partnership, the Centre for Local Economic Strategies (CLES), and the University of Stirling.\u00a0 Co-funded by Carnegie UK and the Scottish Government, it is a practical output of the Scottish Government\u2019s Town Centre Action Plan.<\/p>\n
View the news release\u00a0<\/a><\/p>\n UK Local Gov article<\/a><\/p>\n Access the resource<\/a><\/p>\n View a video about the new tool<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" A new tool has been published by a consortium of four partners to promote the better understanding of towns and their inter-relationships in Scotland. The Carnegie UK Trust writes: A consortium, made up of the Carnegie UK Trust, Scotland’s Towns … Continue reading