Girton Parish Council: Your Village: Your Say!

On Monday 14th January the Parish Council hosted a meeting in the Cotton Hall to launch a project to develop a Parish Plan. The meeting was well attended with over 50 people there, and others sending apologies and expressions of interest.

Parish Plans are a concept encouraged by central government to encourage all residents and organisations to have their say in the development of their local environment over the next 5 years or so. By identifying specific needs and concerns endorsed by the Village as a whole we hope to be able to attract funding for projects and to have a greater effect on planning policies which affect us. Although initiated by the Parish Council, the whole process will be run by a Steering Committee which will be independent of the Parish Council. Cambridgeshire ACRE (Action with Communities in Rural England) will be able to offer help and support.

As people entered the room they were asked to write on a slip of paper the one suggestion, concern or issue they thought most significant. The collation of these suggestions has already shown a number of common concerns which the steering committee must address.

The main business of the meeting was to identify those prepared to serve on the steering committee. Their job will now be to identify all "stakeholders" in Girton, and to ensure that they are all canvassed for their views, and to enable all residents to have their say too, probably by means of a questionnaire. To do this they will need other volunteers and probably a number of sub-committees. So there is plenty of opportunity to get involved if you are interested!

The next step is a series of meetings for the steering committee to plan its way ahead and begin consultation with the village. We are grateful to all those who have so far expressed their interest, and hope that others will be happy to be involved too. It would greatly help if you could sign up as a volunteer for one of the various tasks below, either by emailing steering.group@girton-cambs.org.uk or by contacting the Clerk on 472181 (9am-midday, Mondays to Fridays)

We need the following kinds of help:

- More people to serve on the steering group: meeting 3-weekly on Thursdays at 7.30pm with the next meeting on 14th February.

- People prepared to serve on occasional subgroups to look at specific issues.

- People prepared to interview various businesses and institutions located in the village.

- People prepared to do things which the steering group discovers need doing!

My thanks to everyone who attended, and to George and Viv who moved their Tai Chi class so we could use the large hall.

Douglas de Lacey