Transforming Places
We aim to transform the sense of place and quality of environment across the Falkirk area, creating new locations and enhancing the experience for those living and working in, or visiting, the area.
The communities in the Falkirk area are solid and have a strong industrial heritage. Our approach to transforming the local area is based on close engagement with local communities to design, develop and contribute to the renewal and transformation of each location.
We are currently focused on 4 areas of work:
Town Centre Development and Management
We know that our town centres play a vital role in their local communities and must be supported to maintain this role in the future. As such, town centre regeneration is a key element of our work. The process of change has started in each of our centres - why not have a look to see what's happening in your town?
Developing Tourism
The My Future's in Falkirk initiative is transforming the Falkirk area into one which has great appeal as a tourist location. We are creating new visitor attractions and enhancing the area's reputation as a place to visit, stay and play.
We have developed a tourism action plan which is being delivered by ourselves and local tourism partners. The range of activity covers 4 key areas – visitor attractions, infrastructure, marketing and partnership/businesses.
See our progress report (PDF, 28KB)| for further details on our work to date.
Creating the Helix
The Helix is an exciting new project which aims to transform 300 hectares of under-used land between Falkirk and Grangemouth into a new high quality greenspace. The centrepiece will be "The Kelpies", a huge 30m sculpture of two horses heads which will be positioned either side of the Forth and Clyde canal.
They'll also be lots of opportunities for the local community to be involved with the project. You can find out more on The Helix| website.
Residential Led Regeneration
We aim to encourage private sector investment in residential developments. We've detailed below an example of this type of project, but other similar residential developments are also being pursued at Banknock and at former secondary school sites within the area.
Whitecross Special Initiative for Residential led Regeneration (SIRR)
Norfolk based Morston Assets are the lead developer and majority landowner within the Whitecross SIRR, located between Linlithgow and Polmont. Their proposals for the site include the regeneration of the 125-acre former Manuel brickworks together with land on the edge of the existing Whitecross village, bringing 1500 houses to the village as well as business and industry, shops, a primary school, various community facilities and canal-related leisure and tourism activities. The developer has lodged a planning application and is hoping to start work on site in 2011, though they anticipate the whole site will be delivered over a 10-15 year period.