Agenda and minutes

Councillor Follett welcomed everyone to the first Castle Community Meeting and introductions were given.

Councillors will elect a Chair.

Councillor Follett 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 is anything in the programme they have a personal interest in. For example if the Community 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 that they had a personal interest in that matter.

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

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

No declarations were made at this time.

Councillor Kitterick will give a brief presentation on the new Community Meetings and what this will mean for residents in the Castle Ward.

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

·        More involvement with residents

·        Include informal ways of working

·        To develop a Ward Action Plan for the area

·        Focus on local needs to improve local facilities and services

·        Influence larger funding streams and allocation of services

Members of the public will have an opportunity to discuss what priorities they would like to see in their Ward Action Plan.

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 former Castle & Knighton Area Committee agreed to part-fund a traffic consultation exercise with a view to tackling parking and other traffic problems in the Clarendon Park area. Representatives of the City's Development Team and of the company who will be undertaking the work, will be at the meeting to describe the current position.

Councillor Kitterick presented an overview to the Clarendon Park residents parking independent consultation, which was partially funded from the previous Castle and Knighton Area Committee budget.

Andy Thomas, Head of City Development, and Kit Lampitt, SRA Associates, who were undertaking the independent study, described the consultation process in detail. The key points raised were as follows:

·        The consultation was to research the viability of a residents parking scheme, amongst other options, and gather opinions of residents and other visitors to the area.

·        The consultation process would take place over a two-month period.

·        A small mobile exhibition stall was to be placed around various places in the area to gather opinions from those that parked in the area, but did not reside there.

·        If a non-profit residents parking scheme was to be established, it was expected to cost approximately £25/£30 per car per year.

There will be a short feedback session to inform members of the public of some of the main issues that have arisen from the discussion on Ward priorities.

There was a short feedback session, informing members of the public of the initial findings from the group work on ward priorities. The key issues that were identified were as follows:

• Development (Planning Policy / Enforcement / Consultation)
• Street Scene issues including litter and graffiti
• Parking

It was explained that these initial findings formed the start of the process and once all the responses had been received, a priority list would be drawn up.

Members of the public were informed that they would be contacted with the dates of future meetings.

The meeting closed at 7:35 pm.