A TOTAL of £55million for the Alloa wellbeing hub and £20m new-build Lochies school could form huge parts of the council's investment proposals for the next 20 years.

The Capital Investment Programme for 2023-24 to 2042-43, totalling more than £235m, will be considered for approval at the Clackmannanshire Council budget meeting on Thursday, March 9.

Topping the proposals is a commitment to deliver a state-of-the-art wellbeing hub for the people of the Wee County.

As recently reported, a meeting last month saw an initial planned timeline for the delivery of the hub – construction could start in late 2024 and finish before the end of 2026.

Priorities in the next six months will involve site master planning, including potential future developments as well as travel links, completion of strategic documents, ensuring the design brief fully reflects the needs and aspirations of different user groups and more.

Another critical piece of work is to consider the energy, sustainability and environmental performance standards with the capital programme indicating this will be a “full passivhaus” with net-zero standards.

Also in the capital programme is more than £58m to be invested in education over the next two decades.

This will include investing to close the poverty-related attainment gap, to maintain teacher and learning assistant numbers, to expand free school meal provision to P6 and P7 children and to offer a swimming programme for young people in P5.

Investment will also be drawn through the Stirling and Clackmannanshire City Region Deal, totalling nearly £9.6m.

This will include the creation of Scotland's International Environment Centre (SIEC), phase one of which is based at Forth Valley College in Alloa and which is “already attracting additional leveraged funding and business activity”.

Alloa Innovation Hub will be based in the town centre and accessible to all, incorporating SIEC phase two and the Intergenerational Living Innovation Hub.

Amongst others, the council will also look to improve transport in the area by extending active travel routes, will invest £1m in playparks, mental health supports for young people, the Family Wellbeing Partnership, transformation zones and regeneration of Alloa town centre, the Clackmannan regeneration project and more.

More than £7m will be put into the local authority's digital transformation to make services more efficient, safe and accessible around the clock as “our communities increasingly expect services to be easy to access in ways that better fit with modern lifestyles”.

The council will also support, with more than £25m, the 10-year Strategic Commissioning Plan for the Clackmannanshire and Stirling Health and Social Care Partnership.

The capital programme and associated funding streams are separate from the general revenue budget.

Over the next 20 years, the council expects more than £87m in general capital grant and a gross total income of more than £109m with other sources.

Since 2012, there has been a reduction of £39m in the council's level of debt and its borrowing as a proportion of income has become relatively low compared to others.

Documents for the day read: “This placed the council in a stronger position from which to now invest and stimulate local economic recovery on which the capital plan is based.”