Volunteers have launched an innovative project designed to place the future of a historic Moray town in the hands of its townsfolk.
The Forres 2020 Vision community planning scheme will create a platform for residents to give their views about what the town should look like in five years.
Suggestions made will have a direct impact on the future of green spaces and publicly owned land and buildings over the next decade and beyond.
Using a nationally recognised planning process, called Planning for Real, a large 3D scale model of Forres will be constructed and used as a visual aid to steer discussions.
Locals will use small flags to provide suggestions, which will be used for an action plan to be carried forward by Moray Council to inform its local development plan and the open space strategy in Moray for 2020 onwards.
Throughout late October and November, townspeople of all ages will have the opportunity to help make the 3D structure in Forres Town Hall.
The nine volunteers behind the project – which spawned from a Forres Community Council idea – represent the wide variety of local interests from councillors to businessmen and community leaders.
The council’s Forres community support officer Sylvia Jamieson is facilitating the group.
She said: “The community council recognised all of the green spaces in Forres approached in an ad hoc way. There was no planning around it, but this is just to get some long-term strategy.
“The method is very non-confrontational. If they want to, people can have their say in a totally anonymous way, which means everyone gets a voice, not just the people with the loudest voices.
“This will contribute to Forres for the future, but that’s not to say some of the ideas cannot be taken forward before then by
other partners and groups.”
Public sessions will begin on Tuesday in the town hall at 10am and continue thereafter on Tuesdays from 10am-noon and Thursday evenings from 7pm-9pm until the end of November.
Once complete, the model will become mobile and tour schools and community groups locally.
For further information or to request a Forres 2020 Vision model visit, e-mail forres2020vision@gmail.com or call 07843 842890.