Minutes from the Eye Parish Plan Steering Group


PRESENT Joyce Brown Chris Chapman Jenny Gilders Geoffrey Lane Shirley Little Penny McSheehy Sara Muldoon Thelma Rayment Mike Simmons Lydia Smith (Chair)



APOLOGIES Kathy Barr Sue Hooton



MATTERS ARISING

Sara is hopeful that the next meeting with the Town Clerk will complete the process for setting up the Parish Plan bank account.

Chris has contacted MSDC to ask about their progress with sending the grant agreed by them in April and still not received.

Sara has contacted the media agency (TV EAST) and informed the Steering Group (SG) that they may be of use to us when we are further on with the plan. As Publicity Officer, Penny will keep in touch with the agency as necessary.

HOSPITAL FETE

Sara reported on the Hospital Fete in terms of awareness raising for the Parish Plan (PP). The general public showed some interest in the information display boards and leaflets, and important contacts were made with Tim Passmore, the Chairman of MSDC and Michael Lord,our local MP.

CONTACT WITH SCHOOLS

Mike reported that an excellent first contact had been made with the School Council at Hartismere, and that sound allies had been made in the school. The children had been enthusiastic and interested. In order to develop and build on this contact we need to think about next steps……..he suggested (maybe) an essay competition with cash prizes or involvement in school civic projects. Local democracy week is held in October 2007, and that maybe an opportunity for us. Sara reminded us that funds may be available from external sources and there is some money in the budget which could be used for small cash prizes.

At the Primary School, Sue and Mike had received an enthusiastic response from both staff and children. They had come up with innovative ideas and enjoyed the opportunity to influence the future of their town. The children’s work from that day had been useful in the public consultation sessions.

Mike emphasised that in order to keep up the contacts at both schools the SG would need to consider a planned approach which would interest the children and fit in with the busy schedules of the schools. Mike agreed to put his ideas for future work onto paper. Chris will circulate it to the SG for further discussion at our next meeting.



DE-BRIEF FROM PUBLIC CONSULTATION SESSIONS


Lydia gave a resume of the figures from the public consultation sessions held on 14 and 16 July 2007.

Of the approx 2,00 inhabitants of the Parish, 122 people attended over the 3 sessions…..the vast majority came from the centre of the town.

The majority attending were from the older age ranges (over 44 years of age) with a split of 45% male and 55% female.

More than 50% had lived in the area for more than 11 years.

The attendance at community groups had been evenly spread across the pie chart.

With these figures to hand a full discussion followed re the general outcome of the sessions. The following bullet points summarise the discussion………….

Everyone agreed that those people who did attend had commented positively on the fact that the SH had explored every avenue in trying to get the public to come along and express their views.

Those who did attend found the format of the consultations user friendly…….lots of informal and social intercourse had proved a useful addition to the more formal “heading stations”.

It may have been more productive if we had put on a Saturday morning session instead of Saturday afternoon.

Given that only 10% of the targeted population came to the consultation sessions, should the SG stop and think about whether we should make renewed efforts to include the other 90% in a different way?

With only 10% showing any interest, should we go on with the PP at all?

PLANNING NEXT STEPS

Taking into account all the issues raised in the de-brief above, the SG agreed the following action………...

Lydia will speak with Annette Gray (Suffolk ACRE) re the 10% turnout in order to reassure the SG that this is an acceptable response.

The East of England Development Group (EEDA) will in future be more involved with local development and they will expect to see evidence of community involvment………the PP will provide that evidence.

Future funding may well depend on a PP so we need to go ahead for financial reasons.

A questionnaire seems to be the appropriate next step ( as agreed at previous SG meetings). In order to get the questionnaires started, we need to summarise the “post its” which were written by the public at our consultation sessions.

Sara and Penny agreed to summarise the TOWN COUNCIL/PLANNING.

Geoffrey agreed to summarise the ENVIRONMENT.

Kathy and Shirley agreed to summarise the TRAFFIC/ TRANSPORT

Sue and Mike agreed to summarise the SOCIAL/YOUNG PEOPLE

Jenny and Joyce agreed to summarise the COMMUNITY SERVICES.

All summaries to be sent to Geoffrey (as leader of the questionnaire group) and Chris (as Secretary) by Sunday 29 July 2007.

Geoffrey will schedule a first meeting of the questionnaire group who are……..Geoffrey…Lydia…Sue…Sara…Mike.

Sara will order the Cheltenham and Gloucester software as a starting point for the Eye questionnaire.

ANY OTHER BUSINESS

Geoffrey reminded us that the 3 important issues for the town are the refurbishment of the Town Hall, the development of the Hartismere site and the changes in the commercial properties in the town.
He said that the Local Development Framework (LDF) has certain defined critical stages which
have “time bars” attached to them. The Core Strategies are particularly important for Hartismere site because they have site specific settlement plans i.e. when a site comes out of use it must first be offered to voluntary groups and “care” agencies. Hartismere has been valued at more than £4M, but it is important to note that keeping it for “care” will reduce the value by up to 2/3 (two thirds).

Geoffrey emphasised the importance of the outcomes of the PP questionnaire in terms of feeding into, and connecting with, the LDF. The Town Council can also use the PP information to formulate their plans for the town.

There being no other business, the meeting closed at 8.45pm.

NEXT MEETING

The next meeting of the full SG will be on Thursday 27 September 2007 at 7pm. in the Council Chamber of the Town Hall.

Geoffrey will liaise with the other members of the questionnaire group to set a date for their first meeting.

Chris Chapman
Secretary to the Parish Plan Steering Group
7 August 2007

Reminder of actions arising from this meeting………….

SARA………summarise “post-its” and send to Chris and Geoffrey………order the C&G software
meet with Town Clerk to finalise bank account.

PENNY…….summarise “post-its” and send to Chris and Geoffrey…….keep contact with TV
EAST the media agency.

MIKE……..summarise “post-its” and send to Chris and Geoffrey…..write up ideas for further contacts with schools and send to Chris for distribution with the minutes of this meeting.

LYDIA…….speak with Annette Gray re the numbers attending our public consultation days.

GEOFFREY…. Summarise “post-its”……….organise diary date for questionnaire group.

SUE KATHY SHIRLEY JENNY JOYCE THELMA…….summarise “post its” and send to Chris and Geoffrey.

CHRIS……..type, file and distribute minutes…….receive file and distribute the summaries of all the “post-its”………receive file and distribute Mike’s ideas paper on future contact with schools.