Community-led planning
On 19th January 2010 Paul O'Hare from Buckinghamshire Community Action gave a short presentation on Community-led planning to a large and involved audience.
He talked in particular about the process of producing and acting on a Parish Plan, a nine-step process that we had just started. A Parish Plan might cover any item of local interest, but the four topics that led the list in other villages' plans were community life, transport, environment and economy.
The process normally started with a Steering Group set up with the support and representation from the Parish Council. It would typically take between one and two years to deliver a completed plan. Paul had brought with him a number of example plans from other Bucks villages, plus a number of leaflets.
A lively question-and-answer session followed; here's a few of the questions and Paul's answers:
- Why should the Parish Council themselves not be the driving force?
It's a question of time and of the different perspectives of a semi-independent group. - How would this process be different to a wish list for the Parish Council, something we already do quite well? Don't we already have enough committees carrying out projects around the village?
This is a more holistic approach. - Other plans seem to be expensive glossy productions: who pays?
There are grants available for the process, but the plans don't have to be anything more than a few sheets of A4, so long as they lay out a coherent plan.
In the subsequent Parish Council meeting, debate continued in the open forum for parishioners. There was some scepticism as to whether such a plan could achieve much over and above what we already do in the village, but Council Chairman Karen Parks pointed out that fund distribution is increasingly local, and to access these funds it helps considerably if you can present a single statement of what the village is about and planning to do.
There was general agreement that if we were to proceed with this, the Parish Council should at least start the process rather than setting up another separate group.
In the subsequent Council discussion (agenda item 15 was brought forward to the start of the meeting) it was agreed to set up a public meeting to begin a village consulation, out of which would come the raw material for a village-wide survey, which would be conducted both on paper and here on this website.
