Engaging Communities – Scotland

Do you feel that your streets could be better?

Reclaim Your Streets – our Community Empowerment Toolkit - will help you to make improvements to your area and learn how to work with your local authority to make change happen.

It is a set of practical guides to help you to organise activities such as street audits, street parties, school travel plans and campaigns. Twelve Scottish communities are currently using the Toolkit to promote walking, improve the quality of streets and make their neighbourhoods more vibrant places. You can download the sections or the entire toolkit. With some browser settings, you may need to click on DOWNLOAD twice.

Reclaim your Streets : Introduction and Contents  

Section A: Tools to Promote Walking
Tools in the section will support you in your efforts to promote walking with fun and helpful activities to encourage you and others to take the right steps.  

Section B: Tools to Assess your Local Environment
Rather than relying on other people to sort out the problems in your streets why not use the tools in this section to help you identify issues and make recommendations based on your experience of walking in your neighbourhood?  Whether it’s practical approaches to getting things sorted quickly or encouraging others to see the potential in an area there’s lots in here to get you started.

 Section C: Tools to Take Action
As citizens we have a right to be involved in decisions which affect our lives.  However, knowing what options are available, where to target your efforts and who to contact can be major barriers to making a difference to your streets and public spaces. A range of materials are available to explain the process so you can be effective at influencing changes and gaining support.

Conclusion and Appendix: Reclaiming the streets for everybody