In the north of Sweden a lot of the municipalities struggle with depopulation and a negative developmental spiral. Lately there has been a lot of cases where this can change when new investments and establishments are introduced to the area.
This study has examined how the rural municipality of Sollefteå has worked with attracting new investments and the added new workload to a municipality with limited resources. To achieve this, interviews has been carried out with people who work with these issues at Sollefteå municipality. A study has also been done on existing planning documents from Sollefteå municipality to gain an understanding of their vision and limitations. The study showed that Sollefteå municipality has advocated for their strengths and been able to attract investments and has been chosen as one of the places where Sweden’s military has been re-established. As there has been a very low need for planning in Sollefteå the last few decades one of the main challenges is to pave the way for the establishments that wish to make Sollefteå municipality their home in terms of new detailed development plans as well to ensure housing for the added workforce that would be needed in the future.