Creating the Conditions for Community Resilience: Aberdeen, Scotland—An Example of the Role of Community Planning Groups

Abstract

Governments are increasingly trying to ensure that communities are resilient to the effects of climate change and encourage community empowerment and autonomy. Local resilience planning groups (LRPGs), which include stakeholders with an interest in a local area, are emerging as one potential approach to building community resilience. A conceptual framework has been developed to identify the common requirements for community resilience, building upon existing work in the wider community resilience literature. Aberdeen Resilient, Included and Supported Group, Scotland, UK is an example of a LRPG. In this study the data collected during a workshop with the Aberdeen LRPG were used with the conceptual framework to identify some of the challenges faced when building community resilience. The study examined whether the Aberdeen LRPG illustrates the challenges and constraints faced by LRPGs more widely, and how the membership influences the potential to develop the attributes of community resilience outlined in the conceptual framework. The thematic analysis of the workshop revealed Aberdeen LRPG’s six dominant challenges: engaging with individuals, culture, attitudes, assumptions, terminology, and timescale. These challenges impede the group in utilizing the skills, knowledge, and resources that its members possess to build community resilience. While the Aberdeen LRPG cannot change all factors that affect community resilience, framing specific problems experienced by the group within a conceptual framework applicable to any community contributes to understanding the practical challenges to developing community resilience.