Shaping Our District Together for 2021
St Albans and District Sustainable Community Strategy

Many important issues that face our district, such as providing activities for young people or provision of affordable housing, are problems that cannot be tackled fully by one single organisation on its own. Identifying an overall direction and priorities for the district will make it easier for local organisations to work together to address these issues more effectively and efficiently.

This is the aim of the Community Strategy - to provide a vision for improving quality of life for everyone who lives, works and visits St Albans district.

The strategy focuses on priorities for the district rather than aiming to cover every issue. It seeks to build on and co-ordinate the considerable good work that is already going on in the district and recognises that many of the individual organisations involved already have their own plans to deliver services. It also aims to identify and fill any gaps addressing the needs of the district as a whole or specific communities within it.

To ensure that this strategy makes a real impact for the people of the district it is supported by LSP project plans, which identify the practical steps, measures and responsibilities needed to bridge any gaps in current activity. Success will depend on making sure these are achieved and by reviewing how our priorities can be best met.

The work identified in this Community Strategy supports or is supported by many local, regional and national targets and plans e.g. the Community Strategy for Hertfordshire or the Hertfordshire Local Area Agreement. One of the key tools that will help deliver the Community Strategy is the Local Development Framework for St Albans District, a set of policies which help plan how the district’s land will be used and how it will impact on the community. This will affect many of the areas of work in the strategy.

Our vision for St Albans and district

It is important to us that the district is a place where all residents and visitors, regardless of age, disability, gender, race/ethnicity, religion/belief or sexuality, have access to quality services. We also want to create a sustainable community by improving the quality of life for everyone who lives here now in a way which will safeguard the prospects of our future generations. As these underpin all of our actions in the strategy we have not highlighted them as specific priorities.

We have identified three broad priorities for the district. The Community Strategy documents and its appendices look at each of the priorities in detail explaining why we are focusing on these and how we will define success in working towards achieving them. They are equally important and are not presented in priority order.

For all of these we want to get the best outcome for every single member of our community. The table below sets out the areas of work to be undertaken to achieve each of the three priorities. 

We have identified where local organisations and partnerships have existing plans which support specific work within the priorities or where plans are currently being produced. This analysis is available on request from the LSP co-ordinator. It will be the responsibility of the organisations involved to deliver against these plans and to update partners on their delivery. The LSP’s role is to take an overview, to support the effectiveness of these partnerships and to identify where there are gaps in activity led by either partnerships or local organisations.

We have identified the following significant gaps where it is felt that there is no suitable lead organisation or partnership to provide action where needed. Therefore, it is proposed that the LSP would be the lead partnership or seek specific activity from its partners in these areas of work:

• Providing facilities and activities for young people
• Supporting the voluntary and community sector to provide preventative and support services
• Encouraging and promoting community participation and volunteering
• Reducing our impact on the environment
• Reducing inequalities

The LSP plans to develop projects in these specific areas of work in the following way:

Progress will be driven by the LSP Management Committee and Board, and will be communicated through a variety of channels, most notably the annual Community Conference and this website.

FINAL Community Strategy

Final Community Strategy – Appendices