Community Planning FAQs

Community Planning is the key organisations in your area - public sector agencies, community groups, sports clubs, businesses and others - working together to deliver better services and better outcomes for local people.

Community Planning is a new way of working together.  It’s about working better together to use all the resources available to achieve the best results. 

The Council will lead the development and delivery of the Community Plan working in partnership with the Council for Catholic Maintained Schools, Education Authority, Health and Social Care Board (Northern Region), Invest NI, Libraries NI, NI Fire and Rescue Service, NI Housing Executive, Northern Health and Social Care Trust, Police Service NI, Public Health Agency, Sport NI and Tourism NI.

Churches, schools, community and voluntary groups, sports clubs, local businesses and other key organisations including the public sector have important parts to play.  Most importantly it must involve residents of the area and ensure that they have their say on how to make life better in their area.

The agencies which will be involved in developing and implementing Love Living Here deliver services which affect all of us.  Whether it is the education of children, the care of the elderly, making healthier choices, protecting our community or growing our local economy – all of these things are important to us as individuals, as families and as communities.

Love Living Here - The first Community Plan for the Antrim and Newtownabbey area was published in June 2017. 

We have our Mission Statement, Outcomes and Principles.  We know where we are headed and what twists and turns need to be negotiated to get there

Working with as broad a range of experts and stakeholders as we can, we are developing actions which will contribute to achieving the ambitious outcomes and the “wildly important goal” in the plan.

The Community Plan for Antrim and Newtownabbey is ambitious. We want to tackle some of the most difficult issues which have affected our residents for many years:

• We want our citizens to be healthy, both physically and emotionally

• We want our citizens to know their neighbours, to be active members of their community, using local facilities and supporting local businesses.

• We want to find ways to overcome the barriers to travelling around our Borough byimproving the public, social and active transport networks

• We want to support our local businesses to start, thrive and survive

• We want all of our citizens, of all ages, to be all that they can be

And finally, our wildly important goal is that those who most need our support to be healthy, to be connected, to prosper and to fulfil their potential are supported to do so.

Central to the approach we have developed for delivery of our Community Plan is the widespread engagement of citizens from our communities across the Borough. The Place Shaping Forum in each of the 7 District Electoral Areas (DEAs) aim to ensure delivery of the Community Plan is responsive to local needs.
Each Place Shaping Forum will use the statistics and their local knowledge to identify priorities for their DEA and through discussion will make recommendations which will be referred to the Community Planning Partnership for action.