Minutes of a meeting of the Steering Group held at 78 Nutwood Avenue, Brockham on Tuesday 8th November 2005 at 8.00pm

Present: Lisa Marshall-Bailey Chair
Paul Ritchie Secretary
Hilary Budd Brockham Parish Council
Nick Caddick Brockham Green Village Society

1 APOLOGIES FOR ABSENCE

Bob Pritchard

2 MINUTES OF PREVIOUS MEETING

Minutes of the meeting held on 18th October 2005 were accepted.

3 MATTERS ARISING

3.1 Funding

PR and LMB attended HSBC in Dorking to sign forms and the account is now active. The Steering Group has received £1,000 from Caroline Bosdet (MVDC) and £500 from Helyn Clack (SCC).

PR has spoken to Clare Ritchie (MVDC) about sources of funding and has established that there is a Surrey Funding Fair booked at Bourne Hall in Ewell on 16th March 2006. Clare intends to invite both the Steering Group and the Parish Council.

HB confirmed on her arrival that the Parish Council has allocated £100 from this year’s budget to the Parish Plan.

3.2 Website

NC has established the website and we have received messages about the Parish Plan from Tony Hines and Martin Smith. It was agreed that their comments should be summarised and incorporated into the relevant boxes of the Display. NC will add a comment on the website about confidentiality and the right to edit and publicise.

3.3 Parish Plan Logo

NC has got the first batch of letterheads printed and LMB and HB have sent letters to local groups about the Parish Plan display and key stakeholders about the Plan. LMB has purchased suitable prizes for the winners of the competition.

4 REVIEW OF PROGRESS

It is 6 months since local residents got started helping the Parish Council develop a Parish Plan for the communities of Brockham and Strood Green. In that time a Steering Group has been formed, a project plan developed and public consultation started. It is therefore appropriate that the Steering Group take stock of their progress.

4.1 Task List

The Group reviewed progress of the Task List from previous meetings and confirmed that overall we have made good progress with most tasks completed. However, a number of tasks have not been delivered and it was agreed to drop them from the list. A number of outstanding jobs were retained. PR agreed to distribute a modified Task List with these minutes to Group members.

4.2 Planning Stages

It was agreed that we were generally meeting the timescale for delivering the Parish Plan, which was set using the original guidance provided by Surrey Community Action. NC and LMB circulated a new Community Action Toolkit provided at the workshop they attended and it was agreed that we would apply its guidance to our future planning. It would appear that we are well into Community Consultation stage (Step 4) of its 9 Step Process, although we still need to finish collating information already available about our community to Develop a Project Plan (Step 3).

5 DEFRA APPLICATION FORM

NC had completed the application form to Surrey Community Action for a DEFRA grant for Town & Parish Plans and its contents were agreed by Group. PR took supporting documentation to photocopy for application and file. LMB agreed to try and get Roger Hammond (Parish Council) to sign the completed forms.

PR expressed concern about the apparent lack of commitment of the Parish Council to the Parish Plan, with the notable exception of HB. The Group agreed to attend the next meeting of the Parish Council on Monday 5th December 2005.

6 CASH FLOW

After reviewing the budget forecast in the project plan it would appear that the Group is potentially £3,000 short of the amount required to deliver a Parish Plan. However, NC has been able to secure a quote of £800 to produce the questionnaire thereby saving £1,600 from the projected costs. The projected shortfall of £1,400 could be sourced by sponsorship from the private sector, particularly for producing the report. NC agreed to generate a spreadsheet to demonstrate cash flow and variance.

7 DISPLAY

The Group continues to attend various events and meetings of local groups with the Display, which covers the nine (9) main aspects of a Parish Plan. We have successfully collected a range of comments from local people about these aspects of the Plan.

7.1 Success of events so far

To date we have received a total of 317 comments from the Parish Plan Display and simple analysis demonstrates the following distribution of responses: -

Housing 15%
Transport 26%
Services 8%
Green Spaces 15%
Childcare 11%
Village Halls 3%
Local Business 5%
Building 4%
Environment 13%

Recent events have raised the profile of green spaces and childcare, but issues around transport (i.e. parking, speed etc) continue to dominate feedback.

7.2 Planned events

The Group has been successful in booking the Parish Plan display into local events and meetings of local groups. At the meeting the following bookings were confirmed: -

Friday 11/11/05 5pm – 9pm Steps LMB & NC
Monday 14/11/05 7.30pm Women’s Institute HB & NC
Thursday 17/11/05 4.30pm – 9pm Brownies & Guides LMB & NC
Tuesday 22/11/05 8pm – 10pm BGVS NC
Saturday 26/11/05 1pm – 5pm Flower Club LMB, HB, NC
Thursday 01/12/05 5pm – 8pm Kenwood Court LMB, NC
Saturday 03/12/05 2pm – 5pm Brockham School Fayre LMB & PR
Monday 05/12/05 2.30pm Monday Cafe LMB & NC
Monday 05/12/05 5pm – 6pm Beavers PR
Monday 05/12/05 6.30pm – 8pm Cubs PR
Monday 05/12/05 8pm – 10pm Parish Council Group
Wednesday 07/12/05 8pm – 10pm Brockham Bonfire AGM LMB, PR
Sunday 11/12/05 2.30pm – 5pm Church Hall Group
Wednesday 14/12/05 10am Brockham Nursery HB & NC

7.3 Suggestion boxes

A discussion about the benefits and shortfalls of using suggestion boxes identified a number of potential locations, including the doctor’s surgery, pubs, school, village club, vets surgery and butchers shop. It was agreed that NC will acquire an archive box and we will trial a box at surgery if they are supportive.

8 OPEN DAY

Arrangements for the Open Day, which is planned as the main consultation event of this stage of the planning process, are progressing well with a mince pie and mulled wine event planned for 2.30pm on Sunday 11th December 2005 in the Church Hall.

8.1 Competition winners

It was agreed to arrange for the winners of the design competition to be presented with their prizes. NC to confirm arrangements with Helyn Clack (SCC). LMB will write to the parents of the winners to invite them to the Open Day.

8.2 Publicity

The Group aims to include a poster publicising the Open Day in the next issue of the Brockham Parish Magazine and it was agreed that NC would produce ten (10) A3 and twelve (12) A4 posters for promotion around the village.

8.3 Costs

A brief discussion took place about costs of the event and it was agreed to cater for 120 people. LMB will purchase mince pies, tea & coffee, NC purchase red wine and port, and HB to gather kitchen helpers.
It was agreed that we should send personal invitations to the key stakeholders, residents north of the A25 and other “hard to reach” groups.

9 STAKEHOLDER LETTER

In addition to the letter to local groups and societies about the Parish Plan Display the Group had agreed that a letter should be sent to key stakeholders advising them about the planning process. LMB has drafted the letter and sent it to some key stakeholders. PR has started to collate contact addresses for the organisations, groups and individuals listed on the stakeholder map produced by the Group. NC produced a spreadsheet at the meeting, which lists all stakeholders to help with this process and enable effective monitoring of responses.

10 RECRUITMENT

It is clear that if the Steering Group is to achieve its aim to complete effective public consultation and deliver a Parish Plan it must recruit a significant number of additional volunteers to carry out a range of tasks. NC prepared a contact list, which includes the existing members of the Steering Group, outreach helpers, street wardens and helpers with data entry. It was agreed that all members of the Group should recruit volunteers at every opportunity and NC will update list as we progress.

11 CONSULTATION

The Steering Group has already embarked on the process of consulting with the local community (Step 4) as part of the 9-step process for developing a Parish Plan. As part of this process the Group must gather information that is already available about the communities of Brockham and Strood Green and the Parish. After the current scoping exercise it will be necessary to seek the views of the entire community about specific issues associated with the nine aspects of the Parish Plan.

11.1 Gathering information

NC will speak to Celia Plumb with regards to a copy of a Housing Survey undertaken in 1993, which received 430 responses to a 1,000 questionnaires. LMB and NC will be meeting at Pipbrook with Cathy O’Leary (MVDC), Caroline Bosdet (MVDC) and Tom Stimpson (Newdigate Parish Plan) to discuss what support and information MVDC can offer Parish Plan Steering Groups.

11.2 Questionnaire

The Group has been recommended to use the Cheltenham & Gloucester system @ £75 but the package, which includes questions and database is over 10 years old. There is an opportunity to develop our own database or to purchase a database from a Canadian company. NC will investigate further and will report to the Group.

12 CONSTITUTION

NC produced a draft constitution based on the Surrey Community Action guidelines for the Steering Group, which was circulated for members to provide feedback.

13 ANY OTHER BUSINESS

NC raised the subject of our Project Plan but there was insufficient time to discuss so it was agreed that it should be an agenda item for next meeting. The next meeting will also focus on the Christmas Fayre at Brockham School and the Open Day.

14 DATE OF NEXT MEETING

The next meeting of the Group will be held at 8.00pm on Tuesday 29th November 2005 at 7 Old School Lane, Brockham.

Use our feedback form to make your comments on the key issues that Brockham should address now and in the future.

Brockham Parish Plan Steering Group

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