Agenda and minutes

Members are reminded of their responsibility to declare any pecuniary interest in respect of matters contained in this agenda.

If you have a pecuniary interest you must withdraw from the meeting. Normally you should leave the room before the business starts to be discussed. You do, however, have the same right to speak as a member of the public and may remain in the room to enable you to exercise that right and then leave immediately. In either case you must not seek to improperly influence a decision on the matter.

Councillor Matthew Lynch declared an interest in Item 4 as a Parish Councillor for Astley Village Parish Council.

To confirm the minutes of the Overview and Scrutiny Task Group – Neighbourhood Working meeting held on 30 October 2014 (enclosed)

RESOLVED – That the minutes of the Overview and Scrutiny Task Group – Neighbourhood Working meeting held on 30 October 2014 be confirmed as correct record for signing by the Chair.

Rebecca Heaps - Neighbourhood Co-ordinator for South Ribble Council will be attending the meeting.

The Chair welcomed Rebecca Heap, who was the Neighbourhoods Co-ordinator for South Ribble Council and had come to talk to the group about how Neighbourhood Working was currently implemented by their authority.

The ‘My Neighbourhood’ approach was launched in 2012 as South Ribble Council’s new way of working with communities. It pulled together what were previously disparate teams within the Council, to work more efficiently and effectively together to solve issues and undertake community projects.

The Neighbourhood Forums replaced the previous Area Committees; these forums are informal public meetings that are held quarterly around the Borough across the five Neighbourhood Areas of Central, Eastern, Leyland, Penwortham and Western Parishes. Each of the meetings are only one hour in length and a Ballot Box is used to pick up an business as usual enquiries so that the meeting can concentrate on bigger issues or more important items of business.

South Ribble is an area that is widely diverse. There are rural areas, areas of deprivation and social isolation, an acutely aging population to contend with along with some affluent areas. Some areas, dependent on their location also associate themselves with other towns such as Preston.

Initially the forums were aimed at identifying and agreeing local priorities, interactive workshops were held, using maps to add context and support discussion and were extremely well attended by the communities. Other partner agencies such as the local neighbourhood policing teams were also invited.

Residents have direct access to Councillors, there are no appointments or questions submitted in advance and local councillors are involved with all aspects of the meeting giving cross party ownership. Initially some Councillors were wary of this method, but support and training was given and confidence as grown. Members have embraced this way of working and there has been a notable reduction for the need for Councillor Surgery’s.

There was an informal approach to the format of the forums. The use of visual displays was preferred to that of formal reports or speeches to communicate messages. People could pick out what they were interested in and made notes or express their views using sticky notes. From these comments and existing plans, the Neighbourhoods team were able to whittle the suggestions down to twenty potential projects per area. At the second forum, residents voted with sticky dots for their top ten. From these results, feedback from other consultation and in line with local knowledge from Elected Members, the team narrowed them to 10 priority projects and 10 reserve projects.

The 10 priority projects for each area make up the body of each of the My Neighbourhood Plan. The projects were listed and each project had one or two sponsor Members and a Cabinet Member allocated to it. A start date and end date was also allocated and updates or next steps are reported as progress is made.

All the plans were created in consultation with residents, public services and community groups, to find out what local projects people wanted. A big part of  ...  view the full minutes text for item 14.NW12

The Chairs from a selection of Parish Councils have been invited to the meeting to answer questions of the group.

The list of questions sent out to the Chairs in advance of the meeting is enclosed.

The Members of the Task Group are keen to strengthen existing partnerships and as part of this commitment wished to consult with existing stakeholders including Parish Councils to understand the strength of engagement and explore ways of working better together in the future.

The Chairs of Euxton, Astley Village, Clayton-Le-Woods and Withnell Parish Councils were invited to attend the meeting to give their views on the following questions:

·         What do the Parish Councils expect from the Neighbourhood Working process?

·         Is there anything extra that the Parish Councils could bring to the process?

·         How can the Borough Council and the Parish Councils work together more effectively on projects in their area?

·         Could the Parish Councils contribute financially to the Neighbourhood priorities/projects?

·         Does the Parish Council see any barriers that prevent them from effectively engaging with the Council, and if, so what are they?

·         How can the relationship between the two Councils be strengthened?

Euxton Parish Council

Parish Councillors Katrina Reed (Chair) and John Bamber (Vice Chair representing Euxton Parish Council attended the meeting.

They commented that the Neighbourhood Working process allowed for the Councils help with schemes that the Parish Council may not be able to afford completely and that it was nice to know that there was an additional avenue whereby they could ask for help and advice as some things were outside their scope and they needed the relevant expertise or legal knowledge. They did however feel that more council officers needed to recognise that the parish council had a wealth of local knowledge about the local area and its residents and that improvement could be made to the relationship between the two councils.

Euxton Parish Council produces and widely distributes a parish newsletter that asks for the residents views on what projects/works they would like to see undertaken in their area and these are also put forward for the neighbourhood priorities. The parish council has an open door policy, whereby any group or resident can contact them about any matter. Other than the circulation of their newsletter, they do not actively go out into the community and recognised that they could be more proactive with the schools in the area.

There was an understanding that other parish councils represented within the same neighbourhood area had much reduced budgets than themselves and that they did not expect the same levels of contributions to a project to be impressed upon. They also commented that many of the people who reside in the Euxton part of Buckshaw Village do not consider themselves to be Euxton residents.

(Councillor Matthew Lynch left the meeting).

Astley Village Parish Council

Parish Councillor Laura Lennox, Chair of Astley Village Parish Council attended the meeting.

They felt that the Neighbourhood Working process gives the parish council the opportunity to work together with the borough council to achieve something more than business as usual and meets both Astley Village Parish Council and Chorley Councils objectives and priorities.

The Parish Council is able to bring local knowledge to  ...  view the full minutes text for item 14.NW13

Representatives from the following community groups would be invited to the next meeting:

·         Buckshaw Village Community Association

·         Clayton Brook Community House

·         Community Futures

·         Primrose Street Residents (Virtual Group)