NIPAWIN — With Nipawin’s strategic direction plan ending in 2023, the town is finishing collecting proposals from professional services to facilitate the completion of a new five-year plan to provide direction for the community.
Early in 2018 the Town of Nipawin presented a strategic direction plan for 2017 to 2021. The next, updated version 2.0 of the plan was released in March of 2019.
Version 2.0 updated items that were completed in 2017 and in 2018 and laid out directions for the years of 2019 to 2021. This version of the plan, entitled version 3.0, defines the direction moving forward from 2019 to 2023.
The upcoming five-year plan will be completed with council and senior staff in order to provide direction to ensure the enhancement and enrichment of the town's programs and services with a focus on values, strategic principles and priorities for the next several years.
Barry Elliott, Nipawin’s administrator, said the upcoming process will involve going over what the town has accomplished, and what has changed.
“That’s what we’re going to do with the facilitator, get council and the senior staff together and start talking about these things that we have accomplished and the things that we haven’t, and what has changed,” Elliott said. “Is this council wanting to continue in the same direction with the same issues or has something different developed that has taken priority?”
Some completed items in the 3.0 plan include developing a plan for full use of the new visitor information centre building and promoting Nipawin lifestyle to attract and retain seniors, retirees, young people and young families. These were considered completed in 2020 and 2021 respectively.
Other ongoing items include research and identify opportunities for community façade enhancement grant funding; consider accessibility in downtown area like sloping sidewalks for scooters and wheelchairs which may require bylaw review; and incorporating pilot projects to test revitalization options including lighting (i.e., choose 1-2 specific blocks or 3-4 main blocks of downtown).
The timeline has the next iteration of the plan set for completion by January, with the tender application closed on Dec. 3.
The current version 3.0 strategic plan is available on the town’s website.
