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Bungay Community Partnership

BUNGAY COMMUNITY PARTNERSHIP

Minutes from the meeting held on Wednesday 28th June 2008
at the Council Chamber, Broad Street

Present: Martin Evans (in the Chair), Mark Casto Maureen Davies, Chris Reeve, Mary Seamons, Didy Ward, John Warnes,

Apologies from: Brian Cloke, Josiah Meldrum, John Putman, Bruce Waldron
(NB: Sonya Remblance has resigned from the Steering Group and Richard Mares sent belated apologies, having been in hospital. Also note that Sustainable Bungay is represented by either Josiah Meldrum or Kate Jackson, but Kate cannot make meetings on Wednesdays).
Also present: Janet Peachey, Project Officer, Waveney Rural Community Partnership.

1. Funding
The meeting started with Janet Peachey describing her work with other towns in Norfolk, the most recent being Costessey and Reepham. She has had success with securing funding from Awards for All. Her advice to the Bungay Community Partnership was to stress the need for the consultation project, especially in terms of numbers, and what we expect the outcomes to be. She also stated that any award has to be spent in twelve months.

Didy Ward passed round the first draft of the costings for the consultations and it was agreed that more specific quotes for printing would be required.
Janet Peachey supported the idea that the questionnaires should be hand-delivered stating that in the past she has received a 75% response this way. She advised the Steering Group to talk to Reepham about their experiences. She also stated that she will be willing to help with our application to Awards for All.

Another piece of advice from Janet was that the application should show the value of volunteer time and that it would be advisable for those working on the project to keep timesheets to show how much time has been spent.

Chris Reeve described the Halesworth Visioning day and stated that the responses had been published in a document by the Blyth Valley Partnership, but this had not been made available to the public and there had been no progress since.

There was some discussion regarding the status of the Community Partnership in relation to Bungay Town Council. It was agreed that one of the Council representatives would ask the Town Clerk to create an agenda item for the council to receive a report on the activities of the Community Partnership to date.
(NB: the Clerk tabled an item for the Council’s Finance & General Purposes Committee Meeting and Didy Ward, who is not a member of that committee, circulated an update to all Councillor’s prior to that meeting and this was duly noted during the meeting with no further comment).

There was also some discussion on Didy Ward’s position on the Steering Group should she be appointed as Research Consultant to co-ordinate the consultations. There is an amount of £2,800 allocated for research consultancy in the costs.

It was agreed that Didy would need to resign from the Steering Group to avoid any potential conflict of interest during the consultations, whilst remaining as Project Co-ordinator. It was agreed that the position would be open to other consultants to also apply to conduct the work. Should another consultant be appointed there would be no need for Didy to resign from the Steering Group.

There was also some speculation regarding Didy’s position as a Town Councillor should she be appointed to conduct the research and this needs to be clarified with the Town Clerk.

2: The Visioning Day
It was agreed that the Visioning Day should be an all-day event held on a Sunday at the Fisher Theatre. The date agreed was Sunday 5th October. [NB: the Fisher Theatre was unavailable for this date and a new date subsequently agreed by emails between the Steering Group members of Sunday 12th October and the Fisher has been booked for this date].

3. St John’s Road Allotment site
Didy reported that she had heard back from the owner of the site that he is unwilling to attend a meeting to discuss the possible purchase of this land for community use. She had also been in touch with the WDC Planning Officer who confirmed that planning permission for any building on this land would not be granted, but there had been no formal request for planning permission for any building work on this land to date.

The Steering Group discussed whether there would be any possibility of WDC’s ability to acquire the land through compulsory purchase (should Bungay Community Partnership be able to secure asset funding) and it was agreed that this will need to be discussed with WDC but no arrangements were made to do this.

4. Sustainble Bungay Update
Didy Ward reported that a meeting with Nigel Dark, the administrator for the Broads Authority Sustainable Development Fund that morning had been fruitful. Mr Dark advised that the community consultation was very much the kind of initiative that could receive funding and suggested that half the cash costs for the funding were requested from this fund. [NB. The application for half the cash costs for the consultation, as well as funding for two other, smaller Sustainable Bungay initiatives has since been made. If successful the money will be paid as soon as the Sustainable Development Fund administrators receive notice that the remaining cash costs have also been funded].

5. Action for Market Towns
Visit Action for Market Towns is a membership organisation “dedicated to promoting the vitality and viability of small towns through an integrated approach”. They do this through:
Providing services and advice for market towns through membership
Directly supporting effective self-help in market towns through regional networks
Serving as an authoritative voice for all market towns at a national level
Running an effective organisation

Sally Williams, the project co-ordinator for that group, has created a programme to visit all market towns in the area and plans to come and talk to the Bungay Community Partnership before our next meeting. However, her timetable means that she will need to be with us at 5.30pm on Wednesday 25th June

It was agreed, therefore, that our next meeting would begin at that time. Ms Williams has suggested that her visit will take approx. two hours, so any other business we have for that meeting will be concluded as soon as possible after Ms. William’s visit.

However, as we believe the business discussed during her visit may be concluded within one and a half hours, the remaining agenda items will be discussed from 7pm. The visit will enable us to talk to Ms. Williams about our own plans and to learn what support we may receive from Action for Market Towns.
[NB: we are not yet a member of Action for Market Towns. Membership starts at £85pa].

It was agreed that as many members of the Steering Group as possible should attend that meeting from 5.30pm.

6. Any Other Business
Mark Casto updated us on the progress of the Cherry Tree Angling Club towards receiving Club Mark Status. He also reported that there is some resistance to developing the Common Pond to enable better access to anglers, youngsters especially, from the Fleece Angling Club.

We discussed the need to reinforce the Steering Group with additional members. Martin Evans is to invite David Ritchie who is a District Councillor for the Saints area which will give us a greater reach into our hinterland, John Warnes is to invite Ian Byrne who has a great deal of experience with helping communities achieve their aims and Mark Casto is to invite Mary Hancy who is very involved in many activities in the town.

Didy Ward reported that a further councillor, Simon Thompson, had expressed an interest in joining the Steering Group.

7. Date of Next Meeting
The next meeting will be at 5.30pm on Wednesday 25th June. Other agenda items will be discussed at 7pm for those members who cannot attend earlier. Please note that in future all Bungay Community Partnership Steering Group meetings take place at 7.30pm on the final Wednesday of each month at the Council Chamber.

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