North Mainland Collaborative Project (NMCP)

A North Mainland collaborative working group brought together projects in partnership to share a united message around work in the North Mainland. This group included partners from; Shetland Islands Council - Transport Planning, Planning, Climate Change Team and Education/Schools services, Rural Energy Hub (REH); NHS Shetland, Community Energy Scotland and Hub North.

The NMCP wanted to build on learnings from Nort Natters through a shared approach to projects in North Mainland communities. The group met weekly to build relationships, share information and communicate with North-based community councils on each of their projects.

The NMCP provided a space to discuss projects, consider connections and eliminate any crossover. For example, the Rural Energy Hub were planning to provide meeting and hot-desk spaces in their building and the NHS were keen to tap in to this resource for their services in the North Mainland.

Another example was the Brae Campus school project who are looking to develop spaces in the new school for training provision of renewable technologies; something that the Rural Energy Hub were also exploring.  Both projects were also keen to provide electric car charging facilities.

From these conversations, the Climate Change team communicated with schools to encourage discussions around renewable energy, energy saving, potential training around renewable technologies and how a green space can be created.

This collaborative project was not without its challenges. The rigidity of individual projects’ timescales often meant they were at different stages, moving forward at different speeds; the scale of different project teams, the specific limits they faced and the need to meet own targets was a further block to working in partnership.

The NMCP provided a platform to bring very different projects together over the shared interest of improving resources and facilities in the North Mainland. The benefit of this was the opportunity to network across the projects and make connections that perhaps otherwise would not have happened. There are however, lessons to be learned. For example, the project may have benefitted from involving communities, community work staff and stakeholders earlier in the process; to consider existing resources; key individuals; joint-working initiatives and alignment of projects before time pressures became a factor.

Connections were made between partners but the impact on the community is yet to be seen.

This contributes to all the Partnership priorities; with communities influencing decisions that impact them; connecting people to their communities; people being actively involved in shaping their future communities, and people can access support locally which will help contribute to the cost of living.