Ropsley & District Neighbourhood Plan

Meeting Notes–2nd February 2017 at 7.30pm

at The Green Man

  1. Welcome:

Present: Jo Wall, Lianne Docherty, Anne Marshall, Jenny Leslie, Polly Irvine, Frederick Mann, Gary Reeves, Ann Cook, Mark Wharton, Robert Ferris Rogers, Emma Lugrin, Patrick Buckley

Apologies: Adrian Illingworth & Julian Arundel

  1. Matters arising from meeting held 10th January 2017:
  • Acknowledgment of the appointment of natter matters and welcoming Jo Wall
  • Welcome Robert Ferris-Rogers onto the NP Steering Committee. Latterly we welcomed Emma Lugrin too
  • Confirmation of Polly as Lead Writer
  1. Budget:

It was agreed that we would apply to the Local Authority for an initial sum to cover:

  • Natter Matters – £690 for initial work;
  • Adrian Illingworth – Adrian to be asked to prepare an invoice on behalf of the Parish Council for his time/work on the NP to 31st March 2017;
  • Website build costs - £250 mooted but whatever sum is realistic. Lianne to confirm.

On collation of all Adrian to immediately apply for this from the LA (before 31st March 2017).

  1. To identify initial priorities:

Jo Wall distributed a CRP Neighbourhood Planning ‘Dos and Don’ts’ to kick off the discussion.

It was agreed we needed to identify the core questions to put to the community and have a communications plan. In-depth discussions followed on both points as follows….

  1. Issues to focus community engagement:

Discussion on the core question to put to the community….

“What do you want our community to look like in X years” – there was discussion on if X should equal 10, 15, 20 or 25 years. Perhaps overtwohorizons? At the conclusion it was felt say5 or 10years would be best (not too far away and therefore relevant especially for the younger generations).

This question to be tailored to different age groups.

A pithy statement / core introduction needs to be drafted so that the community can instantly understand what the NP is all about and why they should engage. Anne Marshall to draft a dummy flier.

Mark Wharton committed to drafting / refining some priorities developing on an earlier email of thoughts he did as follows….

“Very much broad areas to prompt discussion in terms of areas people might want the plan to focus on, either in the interests of helping promote change (gently!) or preserving the status quo. There is a balance to be struck, particularly in terms of how we engage the community, in terms of whether the plan is seen as “enabling” positive changes or used as part of a “blocking” strategy to keep things as they are. Ultimately it is bound to be a bit of both and we both know there will be plenty of people at either end of that spectrum!

  • Leisure – making more of what we already have (footpaths, walks etc), supporting more facilities for the community, emphasising the “active” lifestyle elements that the local rural environments helps promote/support – walking, cycling, horse riding
  • Housing – new housing as a source of growth for the community, but with delicate discussions around numbers/style/location
  • Education – the school is a key part of the community and is liked to many other aspects
  • Environment – the general physical environment of the area, the natural landscape with an agricultural focus, environmentally-friendly initiatives balanced against the impact on the landscape
  • Local businesses – will be mixed views on this – we have a few very visible ones that are key to the community (eg pub), but probably some “hidden” home-based ones too – link to housing and general population balance. How many people work from home
  • Infrastructure – communications, transport, roads, paths”
  • [Planning Policy]
  • [Community Cohesion].

Under each heading it was suggested this could be the question posed to the community. “What would be The Good, The Bad and The Ugly about what we envisage in X years’ time?” Got to keep this simple!

Ann Cook said that she task the children at the Primary School with the broad question on what do they think the community will look like in x years’ time and perhaps do a pictorial map. It was felt that this may help engage local parents too.

Jo Wall suggested that to engage the community we could ask everyone to “Photograph / name your 3 favourite places”. Potentially to be done/collated via social media.

Communication:

There was a wide ranging discussion on all the channels of communication with the community.

It was agreed that a ‘sub communications committee’ needs to be set up and appointed to steer this. Three people volunteered/were nominated i.e. Anne Marshall, Lianne DochertyRobert Ferris-Rogers. Possibly a 4th required too – Polly on in an ad hoc capacity?

The NP project and website needs a name. Various ideas were mooted. It was agreed it couldn’t be too generic to avoid web wide irrelevant spam. All ideas gratefully received. To be continued.

It was discussed that the demographics of our community needs broadly mapping out so that we engage the right groups in the right way. The Local Authority to be asked for any data on this they have and email addresses etc.

Gary Reeves to speak to the Village Hall for details demographics and emails they collated as part of their community engagement for their grant application.

Issues on data protection, confidentiality and legal constraints were noted.

Jo Wall recommended that we build a simple website for the NP. This would be used as a notice board and a central collation point for all communications & data, and for posting weighty statutory communications/policy documents. This could potentially be used beyond the NP project for community engagement. Built simply to start but with the potential for scale. Lianne Docherty said that the person who built the Green Man website for her should be able to do one for us reasonably cheaply at c. £250. It was agreed this should be commissioned straight away. Reasonable webhosting costs covered too. Lianne to talk to her web designer.

We talked about channels of communication which included…

Offline:

  • Door to do leaflet dropping (and if doing this door knocking to get emails)
  • Notice board
  • No parish magazine any more – maybe Grantham Journal?
  • Via the village schools
  • Doctor’s surgeries
  • Local businesses / pub for leaflets
  • Bus stops / Call connect.
  • Local clubs – table tennis
  • Via Grantham Schools

Online:

  • Dedicated website
  • Emailing (Humby, Sapperton, Braceby largely done but Ropsley is only partial)
  • A dedicated Facebook page. This would be used beyond the NP project for community engagement.
  • Instagram
  • Snap-chat
  • Twitter
  • Pinterest
  • Other
  1. Other matters:

At the next meeting we need to formally appoint Adrian Illingworth as ‘Secretariat’ to the NP Committee, independent of his duties to the Parish Council. Jo Wall confirmed this is the only way we can engage Adrian.

Next meeting discussed [NB IN LIGHT OF JO WALL’S SUBSEQUENT ISSUES WITH 32rd FEB DATE, I PROPOSE 2nd MARCH].

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