Place Standard Tool: Community Safety Survey

What you told us

As part of a second phase of a Pilot Project conducted by Public Health Scotland and Scottish Community Safety Network, Aberdeenshire Council issued a survey focussing on community safety to be used in with the Place Standard Tool and its themes.

The tool is a way of assessing places – whether the place is well-established, undergoing change, or is still being planned, the tool can help to identify the strengths of the place and where improvements may be needed.

The survey was published alongside the Town Centre Health Check survey and respondents directed to complete the survey should they wish. The survey focussed on the towns which are part of the Town Centre Health Check this year: Banchory; Banff; Ellon; Fraserburgh; Huntly; Inverurie; Peterhead; Stonehaven; and Turriff. The survey was published online in September 2025 for a period of six weeks and received a total of 176 responses.

The tool uses a 1 to 7 scoring system, where 1 means there is a lot of room for improvement and 7 means there is very little improvement needed. In the survey, respondents gave a wide range of ratings across all themes, reflecting differences in how safe they felt and how each theme influenced their sense of safety.

What we’re doing

The ultimate expectations of the Pilot Project from Public Health Scotland and the Scottish Community Safety Network side is to support and enable communities in identifying what works well in helping people feel safe, what requires improving and what solutions can potentially be implemented.

The survey results will be shared within the published Town Centre Health Checks and help to inform future service delivery across the Council. The survey results will also be shared with relevant Council Services for action, where appropriate, and will be used to feed into all Council Plans regarding Place.