The Planning Service and Information Services of Donegal County Council recently welcomed Master of Science students from the Planning School at Queen’s University Belfast (QUB), to Letterkenny as part of their course-work on assessing the vitality and urban fabric of Letterkenny’s town centre.

The collaboration with QUB is seen as an opportunity to build on the successful engagements with local champions in the Letterkenny Cathedral Quarter to deliver significant planned improvements to the historic centre of the town.

The recent workshop formed part of a series of field trips to the town where the QUB students were introduced by Daragh MCDonough, GIS Manager, to the IMPROVE project Crowdsourcing web application and how it is to be used and tested in the Letterkenny plan public consultation process. The use of the application is seen as a means to gather and assess their survey information, contribute to the debate around the future growth of the town, and widen the scope of participation in the making of local policy.