Alsager Neighbourhood Plan

Notes from the meeting held on 23 November 2016

Attendance

Residents

Sarah Anderson

Kevin Armstrong

Sylvia Dyke

Michael Unett

Rachel White

John Williams

Town Councillors

Sue Helliwell

Hilary Robinson

Jane Smith

Phil Williams

Town Council support

Carol Bagnall

David Dingle

Apologies

Daniel Keen (councillor)

Christine Marsh (resident)

Notes

1This was the second informal meeting of the residents group convened to develop the Alsager Neighbourhood Plan, and the first with both residents and councillors. It was clarified that the Town Council had previously convened a working group to initiate the process of taking forward a Neighbourhood Plan (NP), including securing funding and engaging the services of Cheshire Community Action to inform people of Alsager about NPs and to manage a consultation exercise. Separately the residents had had one previous meeting (26 October 2016) - these were the five people who had continued to volunteer to be involved. Since that meeting a few more had come forward.

The purpose of this meeting was to get to know one another and to start to develop a plan for a way forward.

2Some members of the group had been to a North West NP networking event held on 15 November 2016. This had enabled members to identify people locally who would be willing to help us, NP champions as well as the staff at Cheshire East Council who are expert in this area (particularly Tom Evans and Rhiannon Monaghan). Separately SH suggested that Andrew Thompson (an NP champion from Bunbury) would be a good person to invite to help us get started.

3SA circulated a briefing note (attached with these notes) which set out the key issues as she saw them, as a basis for discussion.

4Area to be covered by NP

There was some discussion about the scope for involving neighbouring parishes within the Alsager NP. DD described the discussions which had previously taken place and it seemed clear that there was little appetite from other parishes to be involved. It is therefore highly likely that the Alsager NP will cover the area covered by Alsager Parish. However, there may be some scope in incorporating developments (including those still to be built), formally in Haslington, which are on the west side of Close Lane. The Haslington councillor seems to agree this is sensible since people in these developments will use services in Alsager. It was confirmed at the networking event that NP boundaries do not need to conform to electoral boundaries.

It was agreed to discuss further with Haslington, and to keep other adjacent parishes informed about our progress.

5Next steps

The group confirmed that the Alsager NP must be residents led, with councillors providing support, to ensure appropriate credibility and buy in.

It was agreed that we need to develop a vision for Alsager, and that one way forward would be to have a workshop where we undertake an Alsager SWOT analysis (strengths/weaknesses/opportunities/threats). Tom Evans (Cheshire East) would be a good person to lead this workshop.

This process should lead to both a vision and a number of key themes.

We then need to establish a working group (WG) for each theme. The Chair of each WG would need to be a member of the Steering Group (SG - see below) to ensure appropriate coordination. WGs need to establish aims, objectives and policies related to their theme.

We also need to confirm and register the geographical scope of the Alsager NP (see 4 above).

6Capacity building

It was agreed that the best way to get others involved in the NP would be to invite appropriate individuals to be on specific WGs.

7Steering Group

CB was keen to get a Steering Group appointed in accordance with guidance from Cheshire Community Action. After some discussion about process PW made some suggestions for people to fill roles which were generally accepted, at least as a starting point and to give us a constituted group.

Steering Group role / Name
Chair / Christine Marsh (in her absence!)
Vice Chair / Sarah Anderson
Secretary / Rachel White
Treasurer
Publicity and Media Coordinator / Phil Williams
Volunteer Coordinator
Youth Coordinator / Mike Unett
Editor / Hil Robinson and Jane Smith
IT specialist

8Next meeting

[These details have been circulated subsequent to the 23/11 meeting.]

The next meeting will be held at 2.00 pm on Thursday 12 January 2017, at the Alsager Civic. Andrew Thompson from Bunbury will be in attendance.

SA

01/01/2017

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