Minutes 14/7/2009
Winterslow Parish Plan Steering Group
Tuesday 14th August 2009
Present: Mick Brown, Ian Kay, Betty Page, Paula Page, Tren Torode, Mark Tucker, Clive Broadley, Debbie Evans, Penny Fooks, Brian Goggin,
Apologies: Vicky Kuhle, Tim Elliott, Janie Melhuish, Jessie Page, Mike Taylor.
- Minutes of the last meeting
The minutes of the meeting of the SG on 9th July were read and approved.
- Matters Arising
Skittles Evening :- It was established that the Black Horse could provide a venue for £25 with meals which would have to be ordered in advance. Efforts to engage Pitton had failed so it was suggested other parishes could be approached to see if they could raise a team of 12 players to take the challenge. Firsdown was suggested as an option.
Tennis tournament :- Janie and Paula have matters in hand for September 13th including advertising in the Parish Magazine. Courts have been identified, including the one at the Village Hall which is where the competition will be completed after earlier rounds being held at other locations.
3. Question Time - there were no questions.
4. Correspondence -
An e-mail was received from Tim reference the Core Strategy with a request to purchase a hard copy. Tim advised he had already made the purchase. His inspection of the document revealed the "Winterslow Town" development had been shelved.
A further e-mail discussed the need to "get the Parish Council on side" before the Parish Plan went public. A explanation of the consultation process was given by Mick which highlighted that as a "principal stakeholder" the Parish Council would have to be fully briefed and consulted as part of the 8 week principal consultation process. It is envisaged that this will take the form of an initial briefing to a specially convened meeting of the PC followed by further consultation and dialogue during the 8 week period.
5. Chairman's Report:-
(i) Mick identified that Jessie Page was off to University and would therefore have to stand down from the SG due to her commitments. Mick offered his thanks for all her efforts.
(ii) Mick discussed the "home visits and the fact that some SG/Volunteers were still struggling to complete their visits. The decision was made to ask people to post the information through the remaining letterboxes and not complete the one to one contact due the pending distribution of the Community Questionnaire.
6. Finance
Ian passed around a Financial Statement (attached). The bill from the Summer Fete is £70.00 (not including Penny and Paula's expenses). Penny said if we had carried out fundraising we would not have had to pay a fee for the stall - Mick had decided against this. Paula is to scan the receipts for the fete and send to Ian and Mick. Penny mentioned that printing colour copies of the introductory leaflet is expensive; Mick said we could copy them in black and white, or make them A5 to reduce costs.
7. Fundraising
(i) The tennis tournament is to take place on September 13th.
(Ii) Murder Mystery - Paula mentioned that Karen Chalmers has a contact who can write the play. This will possibly be held in March, the Drama group will support us and we will share the profits with them.
(iii) Car Treasure Hunt. Penny said she had friends who could organise this for a small remuneration, Mick asked her to follow this up. A possible time is April/May 2010.
(iv) Skittles evening - to be held in mid-October, Ian will look into the possibility of booking the Black Horse at Tytherley. Brian has a contact in Pitton/Farley and will see if we can challenge them, perhaps annually for a trophy..
8. Parish Council Matters
(i) New Clerk - Brian asked if Mick had been successful in being on the committee to interview the new Clerk, Mick said no he had not as PC had already lined up three people. A discussion followed about the co-opted and voted-on status of Parish Councillors and Brian said he would look into this. Ian asked if the PC will put minutes on the web so communication will be improved - Mick said this might happen with the new Clerk.
(ii) Debbie asked if we could report to the PC earlier than the final Plan to show that we are pro-active - e.g. website; Tren suggested we sent a gist of the answers we are getting - Mick said it is too early for this.
(iii) The PC had passed the bills - Mick had asked for questions from the PC but there were none.
9. Members' Reports
Editorial Team -
(i) they are meeting this week, they must have the questions formulated and in by the end of July - the mini-questionnaires have been done, door-knocking is well underway and it is time to get on with the main questionnaire.
(ii) Penny asked Brian if his findings so far had caused him to alter his intended main questions - he said that he found people had a limited area of the village in mind when they were answering and needed to be aware of the boundaries of the Parish and that the Plan refers to that area. It was suggested that the word "Village" be always amended to "Parish". Mick said this was relevant to all areas of the Plan and would be built into a foreword.
(iii) Tren said we need ticks and crosses and sections for comments, but it was difficult to collate information from comment sections. Paula commented that after the initial questionnaires there would be a knock-on effect - Debbie said the Economic group had answers which covered 2 other groups - Mick said he would like the raw responses as soon as possible.
10. Working Party Reports
Health and Social Care - Penny said they need to fine-tune the questions and that they had approached the providers of Health and Social Care rather than the receivers. She said the older people she had spoken to were very positive about the care they receive. Debbie is to send a note of a network of professional and casual social car to Penny
Transport and Access - 95% of respondents had said that the roads are not safe or maintained sufficiently. There are not enough lights around the school and traffic calming is needed in some areas. He had received replies from schools about a possible bus stop at Dunstable, but most schools were not aware of which bus stop the pupils used. Tern has final questions to send to the Editorial team. Mention was made of the Community Bus - a minibus service for older people, if requested.
Environment and Biodiversity - Mark said the "biodiversity" part had confused people, - a pond is popular. The group had analysed the responses and reformulated their questions. He will e-mail them to Mick for Thursday.
Economic Wellbeing - Clive said that holidays have slowed progress but the mini-questionnaires have been covered. Clive and Debbie will produce the questions by the end of the month. Clive needs to still cover some farmers. Debbie asked if the Business Group could be a sub-group, perhaps having a separate questionnaire. Paula mentioned that as there are a number of businesses in the village they need to be flagged to the population in general. Mick said a specific questionnaire for businesses could go out later, after the general questionnaire.
Housing & Built Environment - Brian said 95% of replies had mentioned Brown's Copse. He did 40 mini-questionnaires and 6 at the fair - he reiterated that most people were thinking about their own immediate area. He thought his questions were searching but had got lots of different comments in reply. Paula said it was important to look at the comments as just one person might have the answer to a particular problem. Penny said a common theme in replies had been roads, Tren said 95.2% said roads were a problem. 41% people wanted a larger boundary so more houses could be built. Mark asked if the Planning group could ask parishioners where particularly they wanted building to take place, Mick said the Editorial grop will proof-read the questions and look for leading questions etc.
Educational Facilities -
Paula said the group is quite small, but two new members - Linda (?) and Rob Humphries will be joining. They have not talked to recipients, only the literature group. There was a difficulty about questions with regard to adult learning opportunities - do we suggest subjects or ask for comments. Mick said just ask people to tick yes or no to more courses and then put further comments in the comment area to show their specific interests. Paula would like to be an "agent" to funnel interests into courses.
Crime and Community Safety - Mick said they are working on the questionnaires and will get together shortly.
Culture, Leisure and Community Facilities - Penny said they had reviewed the findings of the questions already asked and had put together provisional questions. The answers to be made on Likert scales; Tren asked if she could e-mail the questions to him so they could decide on the implications for the layout if scales are to be used. Mark has a link with a statistician who may be able to help.
11. Items for Discussion
(i) Fete - Mick thanked everyone who had helped.
ii) House calls - people are struggling to get these done but they should be done as soon as possible so the replies can be sent back to Mick. When the main questionnaires go out plastic wallets will be provided with them so people can leave them out to be collected - a week will be allowed for the questionnaires to be filled in. It was suggested that between 7.00 - 9.00 pm. is the best time to catch most people in.
12. Any other business -
(i) Brian said he had houses to visit scattered up and down Gunville Hill; Mick suggested that people swap houses to make visiting more coherent.
(ii) Mick said Paula should contact groups interested in the website and sent them to the business group for them to make a business directory.
13. Look forward - Mick said the emphasis at the moment is on the website presentation at the next meeting and receiving returns from the various groups.
14. Date and time of next meeting
The next meeting will be held at the Pavilion at the Recreation Ground at 7.30 pm. on Tuesday 11th August.
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