Agenda and minutes

Councillor Grant welcomed everyone to the first Knighton Community meeting and introductions were given.

Councillors will elect a Chair for the meeting.

Councillor Grant was elected as Chair for the meeting

There were no apologies for absence.

The first main item on the programme is Declarations of Interest where Councillors have to say if there's anything in the programme they have a personal interest in.  For example if a meeting wanted to talk about digging up a road and one of the Councillors lived on that road, he or she would have to say they had a personal interest in that.

Councillors are asked to declare any interests they may have in the business on the agenda, and/or indicate that Section 106 of the Local Government Finance Act 1992 applies to them.

No declarations were made.

Councillor Grant gave a presentation on the new Community Meetings and explained how the new system would work. The key features of the new Community Meetings were as follows:

• The meetings provided an opportunity for local people to get more involved in what was happening in their local area.
• Community partners and key agencies such as the Primary Care Trust and the Police would be invited to participate along officers from various departments, staff from agencies, projects that had a local base and most importantly people who lived and worked in the Knighton Ward.
• Members of the Public would be encouraged highlight successes and what was not working well, they would also be encouraged to have their say on their local area such as the needs of the area and how working together could achieve those needs.
• There would be a minimum of four meetings per year; possibly more if residents wished.
• The first part of the meeting would consist of information stalls, which would be varied over time. Community groups were welcome to hold an information stall at the meetings and were invited to contact Councillors or the Officers who worked on the meetings.
• The second part of the meeting would be more formal and discuss issues that needed formal decisions such as budget proposals.
• The meeting’s initial task was to identify and prioritise residents’ issues or concerns within their ward.
• The aim was to use these ideas to develop and design a Draft Action Plan that will then be formulated into the Ward Action Plan. 

Adrian Russell, Service Director Environmental Services, reported that the meeting process was to involve the residents in the decision-making process.  He encouraged them to report the areas and issues that they thought were important.

At this point of the meeting the public were invited to split into groups to identify ward priorities for inclusion in the Draft Area Plan.  The initial findings of the session were to be reported back towards the end of the meeting.

The following dates were agreed for future meetings:

• Monday 18^th August 2008
• Monday 17^th November 2008
• Monday 16^th February 2009

The meeting closed at 8:20pm.