About Area Action Partnerships

What are Area Action Partnerships?

AAPs are partnerships that consist of members of the public, representatives for Durham County Council, town and parish councils, police, fire, health, housing, business, university and voluntary organisations. Together we:

• work with communities and organisations to meet the needs of the community, through identifying local priorities and actions required to tackle them
• allocate funding to local organisations and support their development
• monitor the difference that funding and support is making to communities
• ensure that you can get involved with consultation activities, and are aware of what's going on in your community 

Get involved in making a difference in your community

If you would like to have a say and influence decisions that affect your area, get involved. As a local forum member you'll be invited to meetings and events to discuss community issues.

The contribution Area Action Partnerships make to communities across County Durham has been recognised at a special event marking their tenth anniversary. See what the partners said in the video below:

Video transcript - Durham Area Action Partnerships 10th anniversary - What our partners say (PDF) [113KB]

Where are they?

Use the postcode lookup below to see who your AAP is. Alternatively see the full list of AAPs in the county.

The AAPs are:

• 3 Towns Partnership
• 4 Together Partnership
• Bishop Auckland and Shildon AAP
• Chester-le-Street and District AAP
• Derwent Valley AAP
• Durham AAP
• East Durham AAP
• East Durham Rural Corridor AAP
• Great Aycliffe and Middridge Partnership
• Mid Durham AAP
• Spennymoor AAP
• Stanley AAP
• Teesdale AAP (TAP)
• Weardale AAP

Area Action Partnership area on a map

See the Area Action Partnership area on a map.

How AAPs work

Each of the 14 AAPs is made up of an area forum and an area board to identify and tackle issues in local communities.

• An area forum: The forum is made up of local people who have an interest in the work of the AAP.  Anyone who lives, works, studies or volunteers in the area can sign up to be a forum member.  AAPs will hold forum meetings and events as and when they are needed to discuss issues such as local priorities.
• An area board: 21 elected members who will meet at least six times a year to discuss how the AAP is progressing against its action plan, manage spending and work with local partners around issues. Each board is made up of elected members from organisations such as the county council, town and parish councils, and health, police and fire brigade, community and voluntary groups, and the public.

Each AAP puts plans and actions in place to deliver services where they are needed most and has a budget of approximately £120,000 for local projects and investments, as well as an administration budget for staffing. This is in addition to a neighbourhood budget which each county councillor has to use for local initiatives, informed by the AAPs. 

AAP report

The AAP Priorities 2019/20 (PDF) [1MB]  provides feedback from nearly 8,000 residents across County Durham (includes 3,346 secondary school pupils views) on the key themes and issues they think the AAP's and partners should be tackling alongside them as residents.  The report provides countywide detail as well as individual AAP level data.  Data is also available from a village level perspective but you would need to contact your relevant AAP to access this.