PEASEDOWN ST.JOHN -- VILLAGE PLAN

NOTES OF PROJECT STEERING COMMITTEE MEETING

Thursday 16^th February 2006 -- at Peasedown St.John Cricket Club

Present :

R.W.G.Butt, Chair, Peasedown St.John Village Plan Committee (RWGB)

N.W.McInnes, Treasurer, Peasedown St.John Village Plan Committee (NWMcI)

C.Rich, joint Leader, ‘Education facilities’ topic (C_R)

J.P.Rich, Leader, ‘Safety, Security and Policing’ topic (JPR)

Bridie.F.Marshall Leader, ‘Youth’ topic (BFM)

Mrs K.M.Thomas Leader, ‘Flora & Fauna’ topic (KMT)

M.J.Gregory Leader, ‘Sport’ topic (MJG)

D.J.T.Kennedy Co.Secretary Beacon Hall / PSJ Community Association (DJTK)

T.Nicholls, Peasedown Opportunities Project, also Secretary of ‘FAST’ (T_N)

A.Henon representing ‘nesa’ ( North Somerset Arts Association ) (A_H)

P.R.Provest, Secretary, Peasedown St.John Village Plan Committee (PRP)

Terry Nicholls conveyed Apology for Absence from Ruth Grant, he would be raising some points on her behalf.

Bob Butt said we were now two months in to the active preparation of our Village Plan.

At this stage the following processes should be well under way in each Topic area :

---preparing a ‘census’ or ‘audit’ of exactly what currently exists in PSJ.

---starting to assess what the community "wants" within each Topic subject

---preparing to refine list of "wants" into actual "needs" --these were not the same thing !

---considering how we can attain identified needs, this usually with the help of other agencies.

To assist the procurement phase it is necessary for stages within each Topic to be recorded, with costings, and list implementation priorities within attainable timescales.

Topic Leaders need not be working in isolation, they should be liaising wherever appropriate with others who have related interests.

RWGB recommended that members look around internet websites where there were already many examples of completed Village Plans, and a number of these indicated the methods

( questionnaires, etc ) used to compile them. He stressed that no one existing Plan should be used as a model for PSJ, they were all different according to the community.

RWGB visualised the PSJ Plan as a smallish booklet but produced to a high standard on glossy paper. Production and distribution to all PSJ households would take up most of any grant we received towards the project.

Peter Provest said that following documentation of the October ‘Introductory’ and

November ‘Inaugural’ meetings, any newcomers to the whole project had been individually kept up-to-date ( via e-mail or paper mailings ) with aims and developments this far.

Previous experience with administering the earlier ‘Village Design Statement’, and upgrading it to ‘Specific Planning Guidance’ status had highlighted the necessity to maintain provable records of such matters as public participation, content of, and attendance at meetings, etc, as these had been called for by bodies offering grants and other bodies such as B&NES.

That was why a signed Record of Attendance was needed for this and similar meetings.

RWGB introduced the item, explaining a funding of £ 1000 had been secured from PSJ Parish Council towards the project. ( Vired from an existing budget for Quality Parish status that could not now be progressed until our new Parish Clerk(s) acquired required qualification )

This agreed funding would underpin our main Grant Application, which had to be processed through ‘Community Action’.

RWGB said he would be handing over the detail processing of Grant Application to the project’s Treasurer, Ian McInnes.

Ian McInnes said the officially stipulated requirements for a Village Plan scheme required a body such as the Parish Council to act as "banker" for making any payments required. So far we had not needed to make any specific payments ourselves, but the P.C. would have funded the room-hire charges for October and November meetings and there would now be tonight’s.

PRP said that, "wearing another hat" ( Internal Auditor to PSJ P.C. ) he would advise Christine Hartley that such payments made on behalf of ‘Village Plan’, which was supported by but not an exclusively Parish Council activity, must be tallied separately.

Mike Gregory asked that, before such Reports got underway, some further consideration should be given to the span and grouping of the Topics. It was appreciated there had been an aim to break down the whole Village Plan into manageable sections for people to work on in relation to their particular interests, but it seemed to have been taken too far, as there was going to be confusing duplication. He instanced his own Topic ‘Sport’ which could not be separated from ‘Youth’ when so much sport was in fact centred around youth participation.

MJG proposed regrouping the ‘Topics’ into roundly seven groups, which he described, with reasons for each. He further pointed out that if a Topic Leader was for example unable to attend a main meeting like tonight’s, then another Leader within that Group should deputise.

After brief discussion members welcomed MJG’s proposals.

Secretary PRP would reissue the Topics list attached to the Minutes of tonight’s meeting.

RWGB said that as Chair of PSJ P.C. and accompanied by Jonathan Rich as Vice-Chair, he had attended on the previous evening the B&NES Parish Liaison Meeting, at which there had been some very relevant discussions regarding anticipated housing developments in the area.

It was not correct to bring it up under this Topic heading, but for the interest of members he would make a ‘postscript’ report at the close of this meeting.

Kathy Thomas had only recently accepted role as specific Topic Leader for ‘Flora & Fauna’.

She explained she was interested but not an expert on the subject, so was seeking specialist advice from elsewhere. She had already held a meeting on Ecewiche Green with an expert from Cam Valley Wildlife Group. Although she wished to confine her personal involvment on Village Plan work to containable level, she noted the project did not yet have a Topic Leader for ‘Footpaths’ and she would be willing for this one further specific area to be added to her remit.

KMT outlined a number of ideas for developing this now-extended remit of her Topic.

Conservation in the public open spaces could be promoted in various ways, such as scheduling walks to encourage local residents to participate in surveys, e.g. butterflies.

Interest could be aroused by sponsoring and placing suitable articles in the local papers.

These now-linked Topics also had a direct relationship to what would be decided at (5.a).

There were no specific reports as Josephine Stockley ( Topic Leader for ‘Education’ jointly with Colin Rich ) had been expected tonight ( per her e-mail 16^th January ), but was not here.

Also, David Hopes, Chairman of ‘FAST’ had been Topic Leader for ‘Housing Needs’, but it was understood he had now resigned from that organisation.

Terry Nicholls said he was still Secretary of ‘FAST’ but was unable to comment on this particular Topic ( his own involvment in Topics is in a separate grouping at (5.e) below ).

RWGB said that first thoughts on hearing "education" was to think just of provision for children, but in practice having facilities applicable to the rest of the population was just as important.

In regard to children it was likely that provision for a campus of 500-plus was necessary in relation to the scale of housing development. The situation was partially distorted at present as it was estimated 60 per cent of scholars in Wellow school, 70 per cent in Shoscombe, and an unknown percentage in Camerton, were children from Peasedown St.John. In practice this could be "doing a good turn" towards Shoscombe as it may well be stopping that school from being closed. The analysis that needed to be made as part of this Topic should include consideration of the full extent of "school" land in PSJ that was currently operated by B&NES.

The situation with ‘Traffic’ was that a Parish Council report had been prepared by a mixed working party ( Councillors and lay ) some while ago and submitted to B&NES, but without any resultant follow-up. It would have been a very logical starting point for this dormant work to be picked up as a readied starting point for this aspect of Village Plan. The earlier study had largely been led by Tony Porter of Wellow Mead, and he had equally logically been approached to be this Topic Leader, but was now too busy to take on the task. RWGB said he was still hopeful of finding someone suitable, but in the meantime he would de-archive the earlier Parish Council report to enable him to consider the point further.

RWGB said this Topic needed to air and discuss some fundamental future options.

For example, there had long been stated a ‘principle’ that there should be no vehicular access between the older part of the village and the new estates off Orchard Way. However this should not remain a sacrosanct unquestioned policy without at least a periodical review taking place to see whether the idea was still universally supported from all viewpoints.

‘Transport’ had Peter Provest as Topic Leader. PRP said he was not wishing to appear to ‘crow’ on this matter but he tabled completed report which fulfilled in entirety the remit as issued at November meeting. He explained he was fully aware that at November meeting RWGB had stated the aim that final input from each Topic into Village Plan should be no more than

one / two A4 pages, whereas this first report was itself 18 pages long !. However, although the call had been to "assess the present situation" as a springboard for the future, the nature of this Topic had needed a careful analysis of past trials and experience to be recorded so that mistakes of a "reinventing the wheel" nature could be avoided. He felt this was now a definitive document which also made a firm platform for any future studies. His report identified positive and encouraging recent actions by various parties and others that were in hand. Also aspects that needed to be closely monitored, such as B&NES’ response to their own J.L.T.P., assuming it became approved, and its particular infrastructure implications within PSJ. Even within the preparation life-cycle of Village Plan there would be more changes, e.g. ‘Over-60s’ free travel.

Again there had been some delay in getting work on these topics going, due to awaiting a Leader. Initially Ruth Grant had agreed to be Topic Leader for ‘Health’, but on reflection had felt it inappropriate for her to be the actual Leader, but was prepared to give positive assistance

to whoever might be appointed as Leader. In part this was conditioned by Ruth’s changed

circumstances, her work location had moved from a base at PSJ to being based at St Martin’s.

Although the ‘Health’ Topic label was intended to cover aspects such as pharmacy, dentistry, optometry, chiropody, etc, it seemed logical though not mandatory that the prime mover Leader should come from the mainstream Health Centre.

To this end the Practice Manager at Hillcrest Health Centre had been supplied with full details of the background to the project so far and his opinion asked to consider and suggest any suitable person who might be prepared to be Leader of this Topic. Disappointingly, to the date of tonight’s meeting, no response at all had been received to this request.

PRP said that Ruth Grant had donated to the project copies of two extremely detailed academic papers she had written, in part specifically concerned with the methodology of surveying the populace of PSJ. These would be made available to the Leader when appointed.

Terry Nicholls, conveying a message from Ruth Grant, evidently referring to the last point, said that she had indicated that a future study would have its own value in pinpointing elements of change from her earlier work. Her study had been demographically based, thus identified the different needs of different sections of society. She would be happy for her work in constructing questionnaire surveys to be used again. The results obtained are on a sound statistical basis and therefore credible.

In view of the unexpected lack of response so far from Hillcrest Health Centre, some discussion ensued on other potential candidates for ‘Health’ Leader. The pharmacist was at another village epicentre linking various health aspects, but was no longer domiciled in PSJ but in Lansdown.

It was noted that at the October "Introductory" meeting -two- representatives had attended from the PSJ Dental Practice, but neither had communicated since.

In case we did not get any positive reply from Hillcrest Health Centre, other possible potential sources of candidate were discussed. It was known there were other "health" workers in the village, but as they mostly worked "undercover" due to the nature of their work, it may not be fitting to ask them to be exposed to the public task of being appointed as Topic Leader.

However, Bridie Marshall would make suitable enquiries.

Secretary PRP was also asked to write speculatively to another, named, PSJ resident who might be able to suggest someone suitable to act as Topic Leader.

Under ‘Safety, Security and Policing’, Topic Leader Jonathan Rich said he had been assessing the most appropriate resources needed to enable him to progress this. He planned to get a local policeman to join his Topic group, which would be particularly valuable, and he had in mind D.Woodridge, the Radstock police sector Crime Reduction Officer .

Also, one of his fellow Councillors, John Bolwell, had lengthy and extensive experience of police liaison work and would also be invited to contribute.

As already specifically raised at (5.) above, these Topics were inextricably linked.

Mike Gregory would be carrying out a survey of all sporting facilities to be found in the village, not forgetting the availability of ‘indoor’ sporting facilities such as skittle alleys in pubs and the varied "sporting activities" at Beacon Hall.

MJG said there had been an attempt within B&NES to make such a survey across the whole B&NES area, but from what he had seen of the results it had been woefully incomplete.

Bridie Marshall was quizzed on the extent of utilisation of the Youth Club premises.

Limitations imposed by B&NES financing came into play here, as the three nights per week of the premises’ opening represented ( 3 x 3hrs ) the nine hours provision allocated to the village,

and this was unlikely to be extended for the foreseeable future. In any case there was difficulty in finding and recruiting suitable persons to fill staffing positions similar to her own.

Andrew Henon’s supportive role derived from ‘nesa’ ( North East Somerset Arts ) was also explained, which covered not only activities for youth but could also be useful in some surprising extra ways, e.g. if new street lighting was to be required they could help with design.

‘nesa’ would need some additional funding to help with this work, and it was intended they would soon be making a full-scale presentation to PSJ Parish Council of all they did, as background to making a grant submission bid for the next financial year.

Terry Nicholls would also have significant input to this combined Topic, specifically the ‘social’ facilities that were being fostered by ‘Peasedown Opportunities Project’ and ‘FAST’.

There was some clarification regarding the -third- residents group that was in operation,

i.e. ‘Redlands Residents Committee’. The Chair of this group, Sara Holley, had been contacted and updated with all that had happened so far regarding this Village Plan, and had been invited to contribute appropriately from her group.

RWGB said that as a side issue to this, he had specially invited Derek Kennedy,

( Company Secretary to Beacon Hall and of the Peasedown St.John Community Association )

to join this project with a specific remit to assess the "brickwork" aspects of potential social facilities in the village, as distinct from the work Terry Nicholls would be doing which concerned the activities taking place ‘within’ the premises. As well as Beacon Hall itself, DJTK would find a plethora of other establishments, to include Youth Centre, the school, church halls at all five religious establishments, cricket club, and a host of rooms and buildings attached to pubs, etc.

It would be most useful to have a comprehensive schedule which summarised what facilities were available, where, detail amenities that might be available such as refreshments,
extent of car parking, etc, and an indicative table of tariffs.

RWGB said that DJTK was particularly well placed to conduct such a review, as at some stage the whole future and redevelopment of Beacon Hall itself would necessarily need to be considered. The involvment of B&NES was far from clear legally, and there were already such nonsenses as B&NES raising charges against the Community Association for grasscutting of B&NES’ own grass !. Longer term plans also needed to include management of Beacon Field.

This now grouped together two interests that were from different viewpoints.

The ‘Consumer Interests’ slant was to assess the suitability of PSJ facilities from the viewpoint of a typical individual consumer, i.e : "a twenty-something housewife with two kids".

( though it was stressed not necessarily identifying -exactly- with that stereotype ! )

Of course when the earlier Village Design Statement was prepared we had had Lisa Turner
in that role, who would have been absolutely ideal again if she had not, sadly ( for us ) moved away to Midsomer Norton.

RWGB said he believed Alan Spiller had someone in mind for this role.

In regard to ‘Commercial Services’, the idea was to similarly canvass the views of the ‘commercial’ community from an aspect of whether the facilities and amenities in the village were as suitable as possible for the operation and development of their business here.
Had the village been somewhat larger it would no doubt have had its own "Chamber of Commerce" type of representation which could have channelled the needed views.

RWGB said it seemed this needed to be left as a standalone Topic rather than try and merge it with any of the ‘subject-specific’ Topics. In practice there were at least five identifiable religious bodies within PSJ : the Anglican church of St.John, the two Methodist communities at Bath Road and Carlingcott, the Chistadelphian church and the Roman Catholic St Joseph’s.

These bodies in PSJ already had a loose association called "Churches Together", and a good

way forward in Village Plan terms might be for representatives of "Churches Together" to organise themselves to study relevant mutual-interest aspects of religious interest as a Topic.

It was noted that at the October "Introductory" meeting on Village Plan there had been representation from the Roman Catholic St.Joseph’s church, but nothing subsequently.

RWGB said he had initiated some discussion on relevant aspects with the vicar of St.John’s, Rev.Matthew Street. The vicar seemed quite keen to promote some wider representation of the religious community. Historically the Anglican church, with a building roundly only a century old, was a relative newcomer to the religious scene in Peasedown St.John compared with the "chapel" communities which had been established from much earlier dates.

A specific matter that had been recently raised concerned the fact that the Parish Council funded maintenance within the Anglican churchyard but nothing similar for the non-conformist denominations. It had been established this was in anticipation of the date, as and when the churchyard was eventually declared "full", when total maintenance responsibility would be statutorily and arbitrarily passed to PSJ P.C. Unfortunately it was not at all clear when this date was likely to be reached. Rev.Matthew Street had advised RWGB that he has only conducted one burial in the churchyard since he has been in office. Among the population there is a growing majority now preferring cremation as a low-maintenance preference to earth burials.

RWGB said the religious communities in particular needed to formulate their preferred views on what should happen to the churchyard when it eventually passed to PSJ P.C. ? Most likely it would need physical and landscape redevelopment in some form, perhaps as a Garden of Remembrance, as an -external- site for a War Memorial, or even as a Miners’ Memorial, etc.

RWGB said that, similar to ‘Religious Bodies’, he saw the role in PSJ Village Plan of the two local B&NES Councillors, Sarah Bevan and Gail Coleshill, as also being a ‘self-contained’ one ( regarding B&NES involvment ) potentially relevant to -several- subject aspects, rather than specifically linking the two Councillors to particular Topic(s) from the outset.

RWGB said he had mentioned at a previous meeting there should similarly be a specifically appointed PSJ P.C. Councillor who would provide the formal liaison link between the P.C. and the Village Plan Steering Committee. As Chair of the P.C. he had a particular Councillor in mind for this role, but had not yet made a formal appointment.

Derek Kennedy said, although he was only the latest and most recently-joined member of this project group, his ‘fresh-eye’ was causing him to question some of the phasing and timescales for the project. It appeared clear that, at the Inaugural meeting in November, a number of subject-specific Topics had been identified, some Topic Leaders had been appointed, with a clear remit to report back to ( this ) meeting with an "as existing" survey completed and some ideas formed as to how "the future needs" for the Plan were to be assessed.

Clearly great efforts had been made after the November meeting to appoint Topic leaders to fill vacant positions, but even now there was not a full set. By tonight’s meeting the target aim of having an "as existing" survey report from each Topic did not seem to have been fully completed by more than about one of the Topic headings.

DJTK therefore sought clarification as to how this fell into the stated overall preparation time for the Village Plan of "one year" ( i.e. from November 2005 ) ?

Would the "one year" be extended beyond 2006 or would a point be reached where those Topics for which a Leader had not been found and / or Topics where the phased reporting targets had not been met, be "written off" and excluded from the final issued Village Plan ?

RWGB said that DJTK’s point was well made. It was still entirely reasonable and feasible the whole Village Plan, with representative range of Topics, should be fully completed within 2006.

Future stages would need the next target point, ( where identification of " what we want / need " was clearly identified in detail within each Topic ), to be reached by around June / July 2006.

However it was indeed now essential that the -first- target, the presenting of an "audit" or "existing situation" report, should be completed individually for each Topic by the next of these general steering group meetings. Members’ views were therefore sought as to an acceptable timescale by which it was fully reasonable for this to definitely be completed ?

There was full agreement that to maintain impetus in the overall project only about one further month was required, this to complete the first stage as had been laid down in November 2005.

After consultation of diaries Thursday 23^rd March was deemed a suitable date for all present.

Bridie Marshall offered to check whether the Youth Centre was available on that date.

Both RWGB and NWMcI contributed to a short summary of the latest news on this important matter, likely of course to have far reaching implications for any Village Plan we produce.

RWGB had been to B&NES Parish Liaison meeting the previous evening, and NWMcI had also attended meetings within ALCA in the previous two days. Their combined short summary was :

In B&NES area there will be a requirement, cascaded down from government policy, for 16,500 new houses to be built. In detail this has been expressed as :

7000 within the existing Bath urban area

1500 in an extension area south of Bath, likely to be either side of the A367 near city boundary

6000 to the south-east of Bristol, 2000 elsewhere within the B&NES area

However in parallel with this building requirement the long-awaited final version of the approved

‘B&NES Local Plan’ should be issued in June 2006 and is likely to confirm there are no immediate pressures on Green Belt land in Cam Valley or the area south of the PSJ by-pass, which would otherwise threaten a coalescing of PSJ into parishes to the south.

The South West Regional Assembly will consider and approve Final Draft of its Regional Spatial Strategy on 10^th March, and as implied above ‘B&NES’ portion should be attainable without affecting PSJ directly.

However there is a need for PSJ to establish a channel whereby it is kept directly informed of all developments, and conversely to have a voice to ensure the RDA proposals are adhered to and implemented. This purpose could well be served by the formation of a loose association of interested Parish Councils such as PSJ, Combe Hay, Englishcombe, Camerton, Wellow and possibly Dunkerton, so that they operate as a single body with an agreed common voice.

As stated above this will be 1900hrs on Thursday 23^rd March 2006.

Venue : to be advised later [ post-meeting Note : Youth Centre -not- available on that date ]

Minutes of this meeting to go to all persons on cumulative list, not just attendees.

Updated cumulative Distribution list to be Attached at : PSJ-VillagePlan-DistributionList.doc

As per discussion at Note.(5.) above, Topic Interest Headings and groupings now revised and

Updated copy to be Attached at : PSJ-VillagePlan-TopicInterestHeadings.doc

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