Agenda item

To start to identify priorities we as an LCN can deliver upon and influence building on the first meeting.

There was then an exercise to identify the key priorities for the Local Community Network (LCN) to focus on, with attendees having three votes each to select the issues that were most important to them, with the following results:

 

1^st – Transport                                                           24 votes

Highways and road maintenance (2)

            Active Travel (4)

            Local transport solutions (6)

            Road safety (inc speeding ASB) (12)

 

2^nd – Planning                                                           14 votes

            Enforcement (4)

 

3^rd – Climate & Environment                                  9 votes

 

4^th - Access to Services                                          8 votes

 

5^th – Housing                                                            6 votes

            Affordable housing (5)

 

6^th - Community Safety                                           4 votes

 

7^th – Communications                                              2 votes

 

8^th - Economy                                                           1 vote

 

Attendees then broke out into groups and were tasked with identifying issues with any of the three top topics and the following points were highlighted:

 

Transport

Ø  Services to educational hubs e.g. Bridgwater and Yeovil

Ø  School bus charges for rural students, particularly college transport. £925 for children over 16 and for under 16s travelling less than 3 miles

Ø  Lack of bus services for young persons

Ø  Lack of connectivity between villages and towns

Ø  Cross county boundary issues

Ø  No footways/cycle routes in rural areas

Ø  Road Safety/speeding

·         Lighting

·         Community Speedwatch can’t get volunteers

·         Anti-social behaviour injunctions need to be supported.

·         Cheddar was looking at injunctions for speeding and anti-social driving (successful pilot in Wolverhampton) which was progressing with SDC but now ground to a halt under the new Unitary Council

Ø  Road maintenance – potholes, surface and hedgerows

Ø  Local transport solutions

·         Minibus initiatives – sustainability

·         Connection of buses

·         Volunteers – problems with insurance and liability

Ø  Active travel

·         Maintenance of footpaths

·         Lack of footpaths/pavements.

Ø  Lack of co-ordinated public transport

Ø  Community transport – not the only solution

Ø  Hospital transport e.g. Good Neighbour volunteers

Ø  The impact of Bristol’s Clean Air Zone on volunteer transport (free until March 2024)

Ø  Who can help

·         Local knowledge and expertise

·         Blended finance

·         Retaining volunteer drivers (training and PSV licence costs)

·         Accessing funding not available to councils

·         Presentation from existing groups on problems and solutions (recruitment and retention)

·         Somerset Community Foundation

 

Planning

Ø  Sedgemoor Local Plan policy T2B (unmet housing needs)

Ø  Alignment of services with planning approvals

Ø  The need to look at the democratic input

Ø  Review delegation

Ø  The need to adhere to local and neighbourhood plans

Ø  Infrastructure needs to be considered when considering applications

Ø  Better interaction between developers and GP services. GPs not asking for more funding or getting involved in planning

Ø  Need more connected thinking e.g. developments without pavements to the town centre

Ø  Too many loopholes

Ø  Lack of understanding of local knowledge and local impacts

Ø  Poor communication – no responses given when questions were asked

 

The meeting then discussed the way forward and concerns were raised that it was difficult to choose an issue without knowing what the concerns across the area actually were and that there was a lack of understanding of the role of the LCN.

 

The Chair and Vice-Chair agreed to draft a document explain the role of the LCN.

 

A suggestion was made for the next meeting to have a transport theme and if possible have the Police attend.

 

Representatives from town and parish councils were requested to go back to their councils and ask them what they believed were the area’s transport issues so that these could be fed back to the next meeting.