Interim Sustainable Community Strategy

What is the Worthing Sustainable Community Strategy?

The Sustainable Community Strategy (SCS) is a long term plan to improve the quality of life for everyone in Worthing, both now and in the future. It sets the overall vision for the economic, social and environmental wellbeing of the area based on local needs.

The SCS is the overarching strategy for Worthing and provides a tool for guiding the work of all the organisations and thematic partnerships involved in Worthing Together, the town’s Local Strategic Partnership or LSP.  Worthing Together is responsible for the development and delivery of the SCS, though Worthing Borough Council has the statutory duty to make sure it is done.

At the heart of the strategy is the recognition that major social problems are multifaceted and can only be fixed by agencies working together and pooling their knowledge and resources. 

The original Worthing Community Strategy, The Town We Want (2004-14), set out an ambitious agenda for improving economic prosperity and quality of life as well as boosting health, housing, active citizenship, employment and skills, transport infrastructure and reducing crime. 

The new strategy has been named the Sustainable Community Strategy in order to emphasise the idea of creating a Worthing that improves the quality of life for both current and future generations, and to show that it supports the principles of sustainable development:

• living within environmental limits
• a strong healthy and just society
• achieving a sustainable economy
• promoting good governance, and
• using sound science responsibly

Why an interim strategy?

There are several reasons to pause before developing a full SCS for Worthing. Crucially, some key work that should underpin the SCS, for example ways to engage the wider community in shaping services, and developing an adequate response locally to climate change, is still in development. To allow this work to come to fruition, the Interim Sustainable Community Strategy was agreed by Worthing Together Local Strategic Partnership at its meeting on 26 March 2008.

The full document may be viewed by clicking on the link below: