The communities of Tenby and Saundersfoot are on the verge of forming Development Trusts.

The impetus for the idea comes from a desire to regenerate the town and do something about the growing number of derelict and under-utilised sites that blight the landscape in both communities.

Development Trusts are springing up all over the UK - there are 38 in Wales and a further 400 in the UK. They have been able, even in these money-strapped times, to raise finance from private and government sources and invest this windfall in the community. They work within the community, alongside the local authorities, and their ideas and strategies and goals are generated by the community to benefit the community.

Members of the embryonic Tenby Development Trust recently visited two trusts in the Swansea area to see what has been achieved.

In Clydach, the old industrial forge site, once a wasteland in the heart of the community, has been transformed with the aid of a £1.8m grant into a state of the art resource centre with office space, meeting rooms, creche, cafe and high speed internet centre.

In Gorseinon, an abandoned steelworks site now houses a £3.7m training centre for community use. Boarded up shops in the town centre have also been refurbished and are now trading.

Further afield, in Scotland, an isolated town, Comrie, on the edge of the Highlands, has turned its fortunes around in a spectacular way. The Comrie Trust has attracted millions of pounds and has seeded this back into the community to meet housing, retail and employment needs. And all this in a community which was experiencing high levels of unemployment, youth migration and economic stagnation.

Despite being separated by hundreds of miles, by culture and history, the success of this little Scottish town may well have an impact on the future of our communities.

To find out what Tenby and Saundersfoot can learn from Comrie, Alan Caldwell, chief architect of the Comrie Trust, is coming to the area this month to explain the phenomenon of Comrie.

Just what happened there? How did the town throw off the shackles of economic malaise and emerge into municipal and cultural sunshine? He will also outline ways forward for Tenby and Saundersfoot.

He will be speaking at a meeting at New Hedges Village Hall on Monday, March 29, at 7.30 pm. Go along and see what you can do for your community.