NOTES OF FIFTH PROJECT STEERING COMMITTEE MEETING

Wednesday 26^th April 2006 -- at PSJ, Beacon Hall, small lounge meeting room

Present :

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

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

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

M.J.Gregory Leader ‘Sport’ topic, also representing Community Safety Action Gp (MJG)

Gail Coleshill B&NES Councillor for Peasedown St.John (GMC)

Sara Holley Chair, Redlands Residents Committee (SJH)

Paul Holley Leader ‘Traffic’ topic (PRH)

Ross Thompson Leader ‘Questionnaires format and Data’ pan-Topic (RRT)

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

Apologies for absence had been received from the following :

Josephine Stockley, Vice-Chair and Topic Leader ‘Education facilities’. This was unexpected and rather sad. At the 23^rd March meeting, once known that J_S could never attend Thursday or Friday meetings, it had been arranged to flip/flop future meetings between Wednesdays/Thursdays to enable her alternate attendance, though this would necessitate similar alternate attendance from Kathy Thomas who could never attend on Wednesdays.

Tonight had then been scheduled as the first such Wednesday committee for that reason.

Kathy Thomas, Topic Leader ‘Open spaces, Footpaths, Flora & Fauna’, as stated, unable to attend Wednesday meetings.

Bridie Marshall, Topic Leader ‘Youth facilities’. Due to increased commitments at Youth Centre also currently unable to attend Wednesday meetings ( or on Mondays, Tuesdays ).

Colin Rich, Joint Topic Leader ‘Education’. Due to family bereavement.

Donna Schofield, interest from Carlingcott viewpoint ( date clash with another meeting )

Emily Jolliffe, interest from Carlingcott viewpoint

( Jonathan Rich, Topic Leader ‘Policing,etc’ had also been expected but was not present )

Ruth Grant, ( who had lodged a permanent apology for evening meetings ), was maintaining interest and contact with the Group following her receipt of our Minutes and Agenda documents.

Bob Butt welcomed members present. As ever some representatives attended every meeting and others less frequently. This was now showing up as uneven rates of progress between the various ‘Topics’ with some noticeably progressed further than others. Special attention may soon have to be given to some key projects that are not yet properly underway.

Peter Provest said due to a misunderstanding it had been incorrectly recorded at Note.7,
Group (g), of 23^rd March Minutes, that Emily Jolliffe and Donna Schofield had accepted as Joint Topic Leaders for ‘Consumer Interests’. In practice this post remained vacant.

PRP said although RWGB had asked that all issued Reports should readily be made available for peer review on request by any other Steering Group member, in practice he had received no such requests since last meeting. To facilitate such requests, he would attempt to summarise what was now available, possibly to follow as Appendix to Minutes of this meeting.

( Some other ‘Matters Arising’ are reported under the appropriate specific Topic headings )

Ian McInnes reported on an e-mail, 19^th April, received from Richard Snelling of Community Action. This confirmed that there would be a new year of funding for Parish Plans, but application forms and guidance notes for submitting applications would not be available until the end of the month (presumably April ). NWMcI would closely monitor this situation for PSJ.

Gail Coleshill stressed the vital importance of getting Community Action to acknowledge and support that PSJ had a Village Plan in progress. In many ways this aspect was more important than the practical one of securing funds to finance the task. Community Action would then be able to confirm to regional and governmental agencies that we had a robust well-founded Plan.

Ross Thompson enquired how much administrative effort was in fact needed to submit and support an application ?. NWMcI said that, based on previous PSJ experience with getting our Village Design Statement approved for conversion to Supplementary Planning Guidance, the main thing was to be able to demonstrate that the proposals represented widespread public consultation and were not just the opinions and work of a very small minority. The backing document for the SPG had been approx three times the physical size of the Design Statement.

PRP added this was one of the reasons we were pedantically ‘fussy’ over such things as getting attendance signatures at these Steering Group meetings, etc.

NWMcI had nothing to report regarding the ongoing Treasurer aspects of Village Plan.

RWGB reminded the meeting that Parish Council had vired a sum of up to £ 1000 which could be used to defray any unavoidable expenses ( such as room hire ) until we had our own separate funds available.

Ian McInnes tabled two separate First Reports relevant to his Topic heading :

"Green Belt" ( PPG2 ), and

"Housing" ( PPG3 )

These were briefly reviewed. Copies can be made available on request to any other member of the Steering Group ( or other interested parties ) for peer review or general interest study.

In subsequent general discussion NWMcI clarified that timescale for our Village Plan was running ahead of what was proposed regionally and nationally. A Development Plan is expected to come into the public domain approx June/July, though "nothing new" is expected to emanate for our area from governmental level. There is likely to be a particular focus on Bath and Bristol as ‘centres’, with little for the suburban areas. NWMcI stressed that opportunities llke our Village Plan needed to very strongly emphasise the necessity for a balanced

"jobs-plus-houses" mix, not one without the other, unwise to generate commuter movement with no apparent corresponding provision of road, etc, infrastructure investment to support this.

Gail Coleshill said it was important that conclusions reached in our Village Plan should neatly feed in to the development of a balanced ‘Regional Spatial Strategy’. Aims to reduce unnecessary commuter travelling, etc, should indeed be a strong factor in this.

RWGB had several questions regarding the likely specific designation or re-designation of Green Belt within PSJ, especially regarding areas north/south of the by-pass, Wellow Lane, etc, and the currently designated 35 acres for industrial ( only ) purposes.

NWMcI responded that RWGB’s queries should mostly be clarified when the Development Plan becomes available for scrutiny.

GMC reminded members that additional detail Planning Applications for further sectors of the industrial land were due to be considered by B&NES Planning next week.

Derek Kennedy queried why the Village Plan completion timescale was targeted the way it was, if regional, etc, plans were going to be published after it and thus render it invalid ?

RWGB replied that while it was true we could not ‘bind’ any other Authorities, it was far better that we had our own, properly constructed Plan in place to clearly demonstrate local wishes.

RRT, in support of this, said the Plan needed to prove that as many local residents as possible were in favour of its recommendations. Statistically, if about seventy per cent of the population could be shown to be behind it, this would be a very strong tool indeed for influencing policies.

RRT added that to meet the earlier point about jobs/houses mix, it was essential to identify suitable business opportunities for the village. This lead to a discussion on existing PSJ businesses. It was disappointing West Country Vending had merely imported existing staff with only minimal job vacancies arising for locals. Indeed this had also imported a staff car parking problem which had not existed before !. Also, it was not believed that Mercedes had created a single new job vacancy for anyone local. In regard to the epicentre location within the village of the Arleen coach business, there were clearly mixed views as to whether this should remain where it was, historically, or also move to the by-pass industrial land and release the existing site ( which could include the ‘toilet building’ field behind it ) for a more distinctive
"village centre" functionality.

‘Open Spaces’, ‘Footpaths’ and ‘Flora & Fauna’

RWGB reported on behalf of Kathy Thomas. Due to the Wednesday/Thursday flip/flop known to be precluding her from attending this, Wednesday, meeting, KMT had separately
pre-briefed him on the progress on her Topic(s).

KMT has designed a single-sided leaflet to assist a data collection and consultation exercise.

She is anticipating the involvment of some twenty people, though RWGB feels this laudable aim may be a trifle optimistic in practice.

Meanwhile the Camerton Wildlife Group have been asked to become involved and they have already examined the PSJ P.O.S. KMT is awaiting their report-back on findings.

RWGB said at a more macro-level regarding the Village Plan as a whole, he has agreed with KMT, who is web-mistress of the PSJ P.C. internet website, a suitable level of inclusion of material directly related to Village Plan, and he was grateful she had agreed to do this for us.

‘Education facilities’ formal for children and adults, also for recreational purposes

In the absence of both Jo Stockley and Colin Rich, it was not clear how this Topic stood.

Some informal discussion ensued on related aspects. RWGB said in relation to ‘school’ education for children, it was the greatest of pities that when the new housing developments had occurred, opportunity had not been taken to build a modern purpose-built school for about 500 pupils, located geographically adjacent to the now majority of housing development,
e.g. on Beacon Field. This would have not been on a main road, traffic-free, and much nearer for a majority to access on foot. He added that others had given assurances the existing very old school premises had been suitably updated and modernised to satisfactorily cater for 500 pupils within modern standards, but he had personal reservations as to whether this was entirely the case. Had a re-located new school been built it would by now have been possible to redevelop the existing old school ( on busy main-road site ) into something more suitable.

However, all this was now ‘water under the bridge’ and it was necessary to accept that the village had to continue with just the school premises we had into the foreseeable future.

Sara Holley said that in developing the consultation on this Topic, it was going to be most important that the views of parents should be properly sought on a number of aspects.

In regard to ‘adult’ education facilities, PSJ had already been identified as being in need of more adult facilities, yet there were a number of unanswered questions regarding utilisation of the new ‘adult education premises’. The Topic report will be expected to address this aspect.

‘Housing needs’ establish a profile aimed to cater for a future planned population

PRP reported that the organisation for "Fast Community Group", who were originally going to co-ordinate this aspect on behalf of Village Plan, seemed to have effectively "fallen apart". PRP had been sending ‘Fast’ the usual series of Minutes and Agenda, but the Internet Service Providers were now immediately rejecting any e-mails at all, merely sending Error messages that "fastcomgroup" internal mailbox was full and not being accessed, and no more e-mail could now be transmitted to them. This was obviously a most unsatisfactory situation.

RWGB said he was hoping to get an update on the ‘Fast Community Group’ situation at a meeting he would be attending next day ( Thursday 27^th April )

RWGB asked how similar matters stood with "Hillcrest" ? Were they still being kept up-to-date with Village Plan events ? Secretary PRP assured RWGB the two nominated Hillcrest representatives were consistently kept advised with Village Plan Minutes and meeting dates, even though these representatives were "paper people" without e-mail, necessitating production on paper and physical distribution to them each time. Of the two representatives, Mrs G.P.Dixon had come to Introductory meeting in October 2005, but not to any subsequent meeting, and Mr R.E.Clark had not come to any meeting so far. Neither of them had so far voluntarily contributed any other separate reports towards Village Plan.

RWGB noted this, but asked Secretary PRP to persevere with sending Minutes, etc, to the two Hillcrest representatives, so they continued to be kept fully aware of the ongoing consultations.

Some further discussion continued regarding Hillcrest generally. Now that the ‘Warden’ scheme had been abolished, it was sensible to be vigilant regarding future utilisation of accommodation ( e.g. in Idwal Close ) that had formerly been used for care-warden staffing but would never be needed for that again, as it would be sensible if such premises could be brought back into some form of usage that would be of more general benefit to the village.

In further discussion a point was raised that when the Topic was fully examined it was important housing needs in the ‘private’ sector were not ignored or diminished, due to a tendency to give greater emphasis to public-sector housing when this subject was discussed in a general way.

‘Traffic’ Highways, layouts, speed management, parking, etc

We now had Paul Holley as Topic Leader for this. Since the last meeting a paper copy of the elusive "A.D.Porter" August 2004 Report on this subject had been found and, with some difficulty, re-scanned back into electronic format and a copy supplied to Paul Holley.

PRH confirmed he had now received this, and was studying it as a starting point for the Topic.

RWGB asked Gail Coleshill if she could, as a parallel exercise, suitably follow-up within B&NES why the original Report had never been actioned or even pursued. The Parish Council Clerk(s) had endeavoured to do this but seemed to have encountered a stonewall response.

GMC said there was a difficulty within B&NES here that she also had encountered in trying to follow up ‘Traffic’ issues. The main problem seemed to be that an earlier senior official had now gone and a replacement was not yet in post. She shared RWGB’s concern at the difficulty in getting effective response out of B&NES on these particular matters.

‘Transport’ i.e. Public Transport

Peter Provest reported this Topic had ‘taken off’ and now seemed to be exercising a life of its own. The First Report had identified that existing bus services through the historic centre of the village were not only satisfactory but had even very recently received -increased- all-day frequency timings. This was as good news as could possibly be hoped for. Another basic realisation from the Report was that the future for potential development of public passenger

transport for other areas of the village lay with demand-responsive rather than
fixed-scheduled-route services. This aspect was also now being positively advanced with direct local interest involvment, as both Sarah Bevan and himself had been invited to join the Trustee Committee of Norton-Radstock Dial-a-Ride, thus both of them could directly provide appropriate PSJ representation right in the heart of emerging future developments on this.

RWGB said he had a number of questions to raise regarding Norton-Radstock Dial-a-Ride :

Firstly, was a second vehicle for the service now assured ?. Would the second vehicle be used exclusively on services for PSJ ? What was the extent of B&NES’ financial commitment to the service ?

PRP said it was only possible to give partial answers, as this was a currently developing situation and not all intentions were yet fully worked out in practice, or publicly published.

There had originally been a Committee scheduled for the previous day ( Tuesday 25^th April ) which might have provided more answers to RWGB’s questions if relevant data had been made publicly-available, but coincidentally meeting had been postponed for a week specifically so that a B&NES Transportation official could attend and discuss with the Committee some aspects which were arising on these matters. It was however now generally public knowledge that a second minibus was going to be obtained and allocated to the "Norton-Radstock" scheme. It would have a morning/afternoon ‘school’ commitment but the middle of the day was going to be made available for normal ‘Dial-a-Ride’ routines.

No commitment seemed to have been made, or was likely to be made, to exclusive ‘PSJ’ utilisation ( which would be hard to define anyway ), but it seemed clear the general intention was to try and meet latent demand for service that could be regarded as loosely centred on PSJ but would of course include adjacent non-PSJ communities such as Shoscombe, etc.

There were a number of factors involved, not least some potential shift in demand now that since 1st April some over-60s might find the card in their pocket giving totally free bus travel had some attraction compared with Dial-a-Ride for which they would still have to pay a fare !

‘Health services’ not only Health Centre but pharmacy, dentist, etc, also chiropody, optometry, other special clinics not currently provided within village.

Now that PSJ Health Centre had confirmed with regret they did not have the resource to meet our request for a Topic Leader for this. RWGB had pursued an alternative route and succeeded in obtaining the services of another person well suited to the Topic.

Sally-Anne Parry has considerable relevant experience with the Bath P.C.T. and RWGB had now conducted the first of a series of two briefings with her. This first session had covered the situation -before- the current Service re-organisation, and he would be having a further session with S-AP in about a month’s time to cover the situation -after- re-organisation.

S-AP will subsequently be writing-up a relevant paper, and this will duly take into account, and be done in co-operation with, Ruth Grant and the latter’s earlier findings.

‘Safety, Security and Policing’, including study of providing additional Lighting as security aid.

In the absence of Jonathan Rich, it was not known in exact detail how this Topic now stood.

RWGB led some more generalised discussion on the subject, including the outcomes from the Village Security Open meeting on 6^th April which had been surprisingly well-attended, and in a quiet way most successful. Despite the declared Police policies for emphasis on ‘Community Policing’, it was interesting the extent of "shock horror" reaction to any suggestion a community such as PSJ, with a population of 6500, surely clearly justifies a resident police presence ?.

RWGB said that it would be interesting to "test the water" of PSJ villagers, as part of this Village Plan consultation, to ascertain how many would be quite prepared to pay £20 per household p.a. to fund a resident policeman. The take-up might be surprisingly high ?.

In theory one of the eight policemen known to be resident in PSJ could be allocated to this.

‘Youth facilities’ all aspects, including re-establishment of a ‘Youth Parish Council’

As Bridie Marshall was not able to attend tonight ( a Wednesday ) RWGB has arranged to meet her tomorrow, their discussion together to include relevant aspects of this Topic.

There was a general feeling that the services to Youth in PSJ are significantly under-resourced, e.g. BFM herself is nominally only paid as a part-time post yet clearly works to a much greater extent in practice. GMC said she has concerns about the Youth Service on this and allied matters in PSJ, and she is arranging a meeting within B&NES to raise the matter formally.

It was agreed PSJ P.C. could also support this by making representations to B&NES.

RWGB said the intention to re-establish a ‘Youth Parish Council’ would be a positive move.

It was unfortunate the previous attempt at starting a Youth Parish Council had been on a poorly conceived basis, badly organised and ill-supported, so it was no surprise it had quickly folded. However lessons had been learned and mistakes would not be repeated in a new start-up.

Attention was drawn to the average age of this Steering Group, which was very high.

As the Village Plan remit was to plan for a period covering the next decade and beyond it was incongruous that life in PSJ in ten years time would in fact be irrelevant for several members of the Group, and this underlined that a younger element needed to be represented and encouraged to actively contribute. RWGB said this should be dealt with as a separate issue to the proposed re-establishment of a Youth Parish Council. He asked all Topic Leaders to consider how they might recruit younger villagers to assist with their specific Topic subjects.

RWGB himself was minded to swing the pendulum of youth consultation to the other extreme.

He had the thought that very young children saw things from a totally different perspective to adults, and often also with a fresh and unexpected perception. He had in mind encouraging the very young to produce a "tapestry" that reflected their view as to what PSJ should be like.

This did not have to be specifically a ‘cloth’ tapestry, perhaps a paper version across a wall, or if a table-top could be found that did not have to be disturbed for a long period, then the children could be encouraged to make a three-dimensional model of their village in the future, though they should not be constrained to have to work to the extreme dimensional accuracy of an architectural model.

RWGB asked Sara Holley if she would ask the PSJ HeadMaster for his views on this.

RWGB said such a project, whether ‘tapestry’ or model, would make an excellent item to be displayed at the intended exhibition by Village Plan Project at the "Village Fun Day" on 29 July.

‘Sporting facilities’ all mainstream organised sports, as well as indoor adult activities, pubs, etc.

Mike Gregory first cleared a point that had arisen at previous meeting, 23^rd March, which he had been unable to attend. The Minutes recorded that in his absence some concern had been expressed his Topic would not be adequately covering sporting activities in all of the several potential locations in PSJ, nor of sporting opportunities suitable for adult persons.

MJG stressed that, to the contrary, his Topic was indeed fully covering both of these aspects.

MJG said roundly eight potential locations for sporting facility had by now been identified within PSJ, and enquiries were ongoing to identify detail and availability of specific activities at each.

Attention was also being paid to the need to identify ‘targets’ for leisure activity for various age groups. Particular attention was necessarily being paid to the youth category, and what they might want to see in place within ten years.

RWGB said it was important to try and identify what ‘reasonable extent’ of investment in new facilities might have popular support for the village yet be within sensible financial justification. Just one current ‘missing’ facility that might be an example of this could be a local tennis court.

This led to a brief discussion on the interesting prime status in village sporting facilities of the PSJ Cricket Club, which operated on a self-financing commercial basis yet owned freehold lands and premises and provided a very wide variety of different sporting opportunities.

‘Social’ facilities’ as already being developed by ‘P.O.P’ and others.

Terry Nicholls of ‘P.O.P’ was not present so not known how this Topic now stood.

RWGB said the remit was similar to that just described for ‘Sporting facilities’,

i.e. what is currently available ?, what is missing ?, what is -really- required ?.

Special sub-set : Census of available facilities i.e. physical premises

Derek Kennedy reported that he had made substantial progress on this Topic.

He tabled copies of a two-page analysis form to properly assess the facilities at each venue.

He had provisionally assessed there were no fewer than 14 relevant venues within PSJ.

Members briefly discussed this, and surprisingly added yet two more potential venues, so 16.

DJTK asked for some volunteer helpers to visit some of the 16 venues and compile the forms, several members undertook to do this, and advised DJTK which locations they would cover.

DJTK said that coincidentally, as Secretary of Beacon Hall he had himself received a questionnaire from B&NES which seemed to indicate B&NES were undertaking a similar exercise across their whole area. He had responded in respect of Beacon Hall.

MJG said he also had received one of these B&NES forms.

Members felt that, in respect of PSJ, the DJTK Topic exercise would be producing a far more comprehensive and useful result for our village.

‘Consumer interests’ Retail shopping, food ( cook-at-home and hot-takeaway ) and drink.

domestic services, e.g. hairdressing, veterinary, the host of ‘hidden’ needed service providers

‘Commercial services’ champion for business and employment throughout the village.

Topic Leaders have not yet been found for either of these two Topic subjects.

It was still felt desirable relevant aspects should be included in the Plan. There was still time.

‘Religious bodies’ PSJ, including Carlingcott, has at least five church-based groups.

Gail Coleshill had put forward a positive nomination for Nathan Hartley to be appointed as Topic Leader for this subject, as he has suitable relevant qualifications. This suggestion had been referred to the PSJ "Churches Together" grouping, as it was obviously a courtesy to check with them they agreed that the Topic Leader appointment mutually represented all their interests.

This had been raised even before the 23^rd March Steering Group meeting but disappointingly there was still no response at all from "Churches Together". GMC said that Nathan Hartley knew several of the church dignitaries and could readily consult with them.

RWGB said that in the absence of any response from "Churches Together" GMC might as well now tell Nathan Hartley to commence acting officially as Topic Leader for this subject.

In a brief continued discussion it was believed the "Churches Together" organisation itself in fact somewhat surprisingly excluded the PSJ Christadelphian Church, but the Topic should logically include it and any other relevant organisations there might be, and there would be no problem over Nathan Hartley including J.Sheppard ( Christadelphian ) in his consultations.

RWGB said there was no point in issuing further ‘blanket’ targets for Topic progress.

Most of the Topics were now proceeding forward very satisfactorily with their own direction and momentum tailored to their particular subject matter. A minority of Topics had not yet properly got going or had stalled for one reason or another, and it would soon be necessary to consider some form of crash-action or alternative approach to be adopted for these.

 On the wider question of Consultation method, Gail Coleshill tabled a first draft plan which envisaged a series of "Planning for Real" exercises to be undertaken in addition to the other questionnaire and Focus Group methodology that was already envisaged.

This would involve setting up locally in a series of some eight venues around PSJ, the exercise to largely comprise appending comments to a geographical map basis.

Ross Thompson still had a primary role to play on the pan-Topic of questionnaire methodology, surveys and data collection, and he was immediately supplied with some additional useful supporting material. In the absence of Terry Nicholls, who had mentioned availability of a CD-ROM of Ruth Grant’s past works, GMC said she would be seeing
Ruth Grant tomorrow, and would ask directly for a copy for RRT.

RRT also needed as many as possible of First Report papers that had been published so far, and PRP was asked to supply these to him as soon as possible ( there would be short delays with some where further prior scanning was necessary ).

DJTK enquired whether basic underlying demographic information was available for PSJ ?

No-one knew of a specific source for detail, but it was possible some could be obtained from Census data and intermediate updates thereto, some of which was now believed to be freely available on internet website.

Discussion continued with a philosophical point made : there was danger of a concept based on older and possibly outdated data, e.g. of a "Stereotypical Peasedown St.John Man" being permanently carried forward as a commonly-held fixed public perception of what that means.

It was agreed to be wary of perpetuating any such concept if data showed it to be outmoded.

As agreed at 23^rd March meeting it was now the intention to ‘flip-flop’ Steering Group meetings between Wednesdays and Thursdays. It followed the next one should revert to Thursday,
1900hrs, Thursday 15^th June 2006
was selected as a suitable date. In regard to venue, as had already been noted earlier there were potentially some sixteen such locations around PSJ, so Secretary PRP was asked to examine and, if suitable, definitely book a room at the Red Post for this next meeting.