Nort Natters

Bringing place based approaches to life

In autumn 2022, Shetland Islands Council, partners across public services, voluntary organisations, and over 500 community members came together as part of ‘Nort Natters’, to test out a different way of collectively shaping long term plans for Shetland’s north mainland, through a place based approach, ie thinking in a joined-up, holistic way about how people live, work and experience the place where they live.

At the heart of ‘Nort Natters’ was an effort to understand what people who live, study and work in the north mainland want and need, now and in the future, so that people and services can work together to improve the quality of life, services and local outcomes. A range of partners across education, health and care, emergency services, enterprise, housing, and community and voluntary organisations co-designed a shared community engagement effort. This was supported and facilitated by People Powered Results (a Nesta Specialist Enterprise). People across the north mainland took part in multiple ways, including: in-person events, a conversation toolkit, an online survey, workshops in schools, and via a specially designed Minecraft event for children and young people. 

The insights shared paint a picture of what matters to people in the north mainland. It was clear that there was a strong community spirit and sense of identity; and community members shared their hopes for the future. There were stories about how interconnected the north mainland is, showing how challenges on different issues - like transport, education, jobs, or health - interact with each other simultaneously in people’s daily lives.

Linking to our ‘Participation’ and ‘Place’ priorities, there is now an opportunity for individuals, groups, communities and organisations in the north mainland and wider Shetland to use these insights to work together in a more collaborative and collective way. By taking a place-based approach to how we look at local challenges, we have opportunities to develop and try new ways of working which: listen to and address local challenges collaboratively improve outcomes for people, by building on what is strong locally.