PEASEDOWN ST.JOHN -- VILLAGE PLAN

NOTES OF INAUGURAL MEETING

Saturday 26^th November 2005 -- at Peasedown St.John Cricket Club

Present :

R.W.G.Butt, Vice-Chair, Peasedown St.John Parish Council (RWGB)

C.Rich, Councillor, Peasedown St.John Parish Council (C_R)

J.P.Rich, Councillor, Peasedown St.John Parish Council (JPR)

N.W.McInnes, Avon Local Councils Association (NWMcI)

T.Nicholls, Peasedown Opportunities Project (T_N)

Josephine Stockley, [ range of educational interests ] (J_S)

P.R.Provest, Internal Auditor, Peasedown St.John Parish Council (PRP)

RWGB said he had been actively investigating the regulatory framework for a formal Village Plan project, with first emphasis on establishing sources and conditions for obtaining necessary financing. For a community the size of Peasedown St.John, it was clear a Budget of roundly

£ 5,000 would be appropriate, perhaps £ 4,500 of this as a single grant channelled through ‘Community Action’, the remainder from other sources such as the Parish Council and maybe some specific sponsorships. Part of the resource could be expected to be "in kind", such as office facilities and professional ‘consultancy’ expertise. In practice, our application for funds would not be processed until the new financial year, April 2006, but prior to that we must already demonstrate a current commitment and correctly-applied ongoing project involvment.

To meet statutory requirements finances would need to be closely monitored by a relevant statutory body, such as the Parish Council, who would need to act as the project’s ‘bankers’.

The first steps in formal procedures then followed :

Those present unanimously felt that R.W.G.Butt, who had initiated this Village Plan project, should take the formal position of Chair. RWGB accepted and was duly elected.

Speaking as newly-elected Chair, RWGB said he was particularly anxious that the primary postholder posts in the Village Plan project were not all filled by Parish Councillors.

However there would be a separate need to appoint a "back-bench" Parish Councillor to act as specific liaison officer between the Parish Council and the Project [ later Action : RWGB ]

After discussion Josephine Stockley agreed to accept post of Vice-Chair, though asked for it to be understood that, due to other commitments, she might not be able to attend all meetings.

It was agreed P.R.Provest should be appointed as Secretary to the project, a sequitur to the role he had occupied on the earlier Village Design Statement project.

RWGB said we had learnt from the Village Design Statement, where a disproportionate amount of written work origination had fallen on PRP and NWMcI. For the Village Plan he envisaged the Secretary would have a central collating role, but there would need to be much more self-contained input completed concisely by each of the various ‘Interest’ Groups.

To comply with statutory requirements regarding financing the project it would be necessary to involve the Parish Council as ‘banker’. However the group needed to appoint its own officer,
to act as ‘Treasurer’ or ‘Auditor’ when clearer detail of the finance obligations was known.

N.W.McInnes agreed to be elected to this post.

These two agenda items were taken together. A number of discrete ‘Interest Headings’ emerged from the discussion, though the list is by no means yet complete or finite.

Similarly, a full roster of appointees to become ‘Interest Heading Leaders’ could not be assembled from those present at this meeting, and this aspect will need to be followed up by circulating information about the Plan to interested organisations, parties and individuals.

Envisaged as covering highways, layouts, speed management, parking, and similar topics.

There was no obvious candidate present to be Leader, but RWGB suggested that in the first instance copy of these papers should go to Tony Porter, who may be interested in doing it.

i.e. Public Transport. Review from a starting point of what currently exists through to what does not exist but for which there is a demand. Include anticipated changed patterns such as the introduction of free travel for over-60s from April 2006. Noted that the B&NES District Councillors have already started reviewing extension of Dial-a-Ride, which is also relevant.

P.R.Provest was willing to be Interest Heading Leader for this topic.

This general heading covers a wide range of aspects that need to be sub-divided.

‘Green Belt’ issues top the list. There is a known imposed future policy that will put a further 15,000 new houses into the region, with an inevitable pressure within B&NES to site more in the Norton/Radstock area, which will include Peasedown St.John. We need to have a carefully prepared strategy in our Village Plan as to what might, or might not, be acceptable. Clearly a ‘defence’ policy is needed that, for example, our hard-won by-pass does not become just a central distributor road acting as central spine of a new estate.

Consideration needs to be given to the whole ‘envelope’ comprising the village.

N.W.McInnes agreed to become the prime Interest Heading Leader for this focal topic.

Other environmental aspects that could cascade from this general heading might include :

Housing needs a profile aimed to cater for a future planned population
( existing local groups such as "FAST" can no doubt contribute to this )

Open Spaces e.g. relocation / additional / more central designated Village Green

Flora and Fauna, Footpaths, etc.

J.P.Rich agreed to be Interest Heading Leader for this topic, which was a natural extension of Police liaison matters in which he was already becoming involved.

Education facilities not only for resident child age-groups, but also for Adults and Recreational

Josephine Stockley and C.Rich would jointly consider allocation/development of these topics

( it was anticipated Bridie Marshall would be willing to be Interest Heading Leader for this )

Health services Health Centre, dentist, etc. Also what is missing ? e.g. chiropody

( existing work being undertaken, e.g. by the Health Visitors, could be incorporated into this )

( as already being developed by the Peasedown Opportunities Project and others )

Retail shopping facilities

Food and Drink availability of cook-at-home suppliers, takeaway hot food, eat-in cafes, etc

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

Commercial services employment within village, e.g. the Business Park and Wellow Lane units

Sporting facilities mainstream organised sports, also indoor activities and in pubs, etc

Religious bodies a surprising number/variety of churches in PSJ, including Carlingcott

There were no obvious candidates present to become Interest Leaders for any of the above.

RWGB said there was a need, indeed it was imperative if the Village Plan procedure was to be properly conducted, there should be involvment by -all- representative organisations and bodies within the village, and there were several with relevant potential interests in these topics.

The Village Plan concept meant that any such organisations or indeed individual residents can approach the Steering Committee to have these or other entirely new Interest Headings considered as part of the Plan.

A large number of existing Village Plans, together with the methodology used to compile them, are now to be found on internet websites. These are excellent for providing pointers as to procedure and content, though all villages are different and the temptation to ‘copy’ content needs to be avoided. RWGB said a common practice is to issue a questionnaire to every household in a community, which works best in smaller villages where the return of properly completed forms can be more closely controlled and therefore a meaningful ‘response rate’ achieved. The public quickly tires of questionnaires, so this can only work on one occasion.

RWGB felt a more complete and meaningful response can be gained using carefully devised questionnaires in door-step interviews conducted by the ‘Interest Heading Teams’.

These should avoid ‘closed’ ‘yes/no’ questions but require expression of ‘how’ and ‘opinions’.

RWGB had issued his own first ideas for a model questionnaire at the 22^nd October meeting :

RWGB now tabled a further suggested draft questionnaire for 11 to 17 year old residents :

RWGB tabled two further drafts for consideration by the Steering Group :

"Constitution" and "Terms of Reference"

Although paragraph 13. of the draft Constitution specifies that it should be presented for approval at this first meeting of the Steering Group, there was in practice insufficient time to consider and resolve the matter. It was agreed that copies of both drafts should be Attached to the Minutes of this meeting for further consideration by members and adoption at next meeting.

RWGB said that strategically the next steps were for the individual topic ‘Interest Groups’ to organise themselves to proceed with the following broad stages :

--assess the status of their topic within PSJ "now".

--ascertain what PSJ "needs" within the scope of their topic

( the definition of ‘needed’ is that facility would definitely be used just as soon as it was there )

--ascertain what PSJ "would like" within the scope of their topic,

the latter two set against a timescale from now ( 2005 ) to the desired situation in year 2015.

As stated, the first task was to consider the questionnaire strategy needed for each topic.

If we failed to devise a set of locally-desired plans ourselves, co-ordinated into a comprehensive Village Plan, we ran a greater risk of having schemes that we did not really want imposed upon us and our locality.

Each of the Interest Groups ( perhaps finally some ten or twelve sources ) should eventually write-up their own segment of the Village Plan, ideally less than two pages of A4 on each topic.

Meanwhile a general progress presentation should be made, a suitable date and place would be the Annual Meeting of the Parish Council in May 2006. Timescale for the whole project could see completion within twelve months if positive forward progress was sustained, to a maximum of eighteen months if extra time was really needed.

As a number of people who had attended the Introductory Meeting on 22^nd October had not been able to attend today it was only possible to tentatively assume that perhaps

9^th or 16^th December might be more generally suitable for the next meeting, and this was to be confirmed, together with booking of a suitable venue.

It was agreed that, as far as possible, distribution of Minutes of Steering Group meetings and other relevant documentation ‘central’ to the Village Plan project should be via e-mail, as this would greatly facilitate administration, giving speedy delivery, savings in paper, postage, etc.

Physically-distributed paper copies to only be sent to persons with no access to e-mail facility.

The first edition of Distribution List ( as at 26^th November 2005 ) is Attached to these Minutes.

Corrections/additions (and email addresses where these not shown) please advise to Secretary

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e-mails to the Secretary should be sent to : prp@talk21.com

( It is sensible to prefix Subject Headings with (PSJ vplan)-- to avoid inadvertent diversion of e-mails to ‘Bulk’ and ‘Junk’ folders by spam-filter protection programs now widely used )

The ( paper ) mailing address of the Secretary is :

P.R.Provest, Secy PSJ Village Plan, 7 Sunset Close, Peasedown St.John, Bath, BA2 8HE