Introducing Worthing’s Community Strategy, The Town We Want

Over the past couple of years, local communities like Worthing, have been producing their Community Strategies. These unique documents combine a long-term vision for their area and a detailed action plan, which all local people can support. Worthing’s Community Strategy, The Town We Want, was launched in 2004.

The difference between The Town We Want and previous attempts to bring joined-up-thinking to the development of the local community lies in the common goals that are at the heart of the strategy. There are seven goals that must be reached if we are to create The Town We Want:

•  We want a town with an active and involved community:  This is, for many people, the most important goal: to make Worthing into a place that is known for the engagement of its people in its affairs and for its active concern for all.
•  We want a safe town: Safety and crime prevention continue to be high priorities for local people. By a combination of effective prevention, education and enforcement we can and will reduce crime and the fear of crime.
•  We want a prosperous town:  We are not naively expecting everything to improve without the finance that is created through economic strength and we have put in place practical measures to bring greater prosperity.
•  We want a town with fewer inequalities:  There are significant variations in the quality of housing, health, care and support across the town and the strategy is designed to reduce the gap between the most advantaged and most deprived areas.
•  We want a town with something for everyone:  In our consultations, people repeatedly raised concerns about the lack of leisure opportunities and facilities in Worthing and the strategy contains actions that will help tackle this issue both on a large scale and the smaller scale.
• We want a learning town:  Education has a vital part to play in achieving virtually every objective in the strategy and it also has its own big priorities such as developing better nursery education and making a big contribution to the up-skilling of the town’s workforce.
•  We want a town you can get around:  Unless people can move freely and at affordable cost around our town, most of our objectives will not be met.

You can read more about each of these goals and the actions intended to address them by clicking on the relevant goal on this page.

For the latest progress towards reaching these actions, please see the Annual Report.