Parish Plan Group
Report for Parish Council Meeting 8th November 2016
Reasons for exploring a Parish Plan
- To find out what the Parishioners think about the Parish
- To ask questions about how to improve the village / community
- To understand priorities for improvements
- To agree an action plan to implement any improvements
Example Plans
Pannal
http://www.pannalandburnbridge-pc.gov.uk/TheCouncil.aspx
North Rigton
http://www.northrigton.org/?page_id=385%20C
Actions since the last Parish Council meeting
Contacted North Rigton Parish Council to discuss how they proceeded developing a Parish Plan and any lessons learnt. Meeting with Mr Andrew Batcup who gave excellent guidance on the process and expectations. Advised contacting Rural Action Yorkshire as a first step as they can provide advice and assistance obtaining funding. Suggested we looked at the Pannal Parish Plan.
Contacted Pannal Parish contact and obtained a copy of the Parish Plan and other information.
Contacted North Rigton Parish Council to request a copy of their questionnaire. We are currently waiting for this.
Obtained North Yorkshire County Councils publication – Parish Planning: A guide to the support available from North Yorkshire County Council.
The NYCC guide included contact details for Harrogate and District Stronger Communities Delivery Manager – Liz Meades.
Contacted Liz Meades who advised that the first contact should be with Rural Action Yorkshire who can guide us and help with funding applications. Stronger Communities may be able to assist financially later, for example specifically for a public consultation or meeting.
Contacted Rural Action Yorkshire (Leah Swain) who suggested that we go to see them to discuss further. There are two broad options:
- RAY provide guidance on the process and assistance with grant applications to fund a Parish Plan. We believe this is free of charge.
- RAY help by undertaking the work required to prepare a Parish Plan. This is a chargeable service but their costs would be included in the grant application calculation.
Funding
Preparing a Parish Plan incurs a number of costs for example:
- Preparation and printing of questionnaires
- Postage
- Setting up on line presence for questionnaire / communication
- Organising and running public meetings
- IT costs /printing
- Preparation of final document / graphics
- Final printing / publication / distribution of plan.
Parish Plans can be funded in a number of ways
- Lottery funding
- Stronger Communities Grants
- Other grants
- Parish Council funds / precept
- Donations
Typical Parish Plan topics
- Environment
- Housing
- Leisure and recreation
- Crime
- Traffic and transport
- Communication
- Information on the respondents
Next Steps
We propose that we pursue the development of a Parish Plan managed by the Parish Council with the sub group authorised to progress with the following tasks. The sub group would report to the Parish Council for approval prior to key stages and prior to any expenditure. The next step is to meet with Rural Action Yorkshire and discuss the options of either self-organising the Parish Plan or using RAY to do the work for us. Providing we are suitably satisfied by RAY, that the Parish Council would retain control of the Parish Plan, not be divorced from the process or feel remote from the Parishioners, we currently favour taking advantage of RAY’s offer to help with the plans preparation. We would like to proceed with developing initial thoughts about the questionnaire and making applications for funding following a meeting with RAY.
A Parish Plan needs to be inclusive and involve all groups within the community if it is to receive funding from the Lottery or other grant sources. We anticipate that once we have a clear idea about the format and scope of the Parish Plan we would seek to consult with a number of Weeton and Huby groups to ensure we take account of wider community issues in the formatting of the questionnaire. This may be through a shared meeting or individually with groups.
Derek Needham Harwin Bosworth Paul Jagger