Dorstone Parish Plan Steering Group
Colin Thomas (Chair) John Platts (Secretary), Emma Beddall (Publicity) Matthew Swindale (Treasurer), Russell Goodwin, Eileen Smith, Toni Birchenhough, Violet Smith, Bryn Brooks, Simon Gaze*, Pat Rye*, Mary Hessian* & Chris Hendy**
How did this start?
The idea to prepare a Parish Plan came from two open meetings held in the Village during last Summer, where it was agreed that we should prepare one for Dorstone. A Steering Group was formed comprising mainly of volunteers but also three members of the Parish Council who are sponsoring the Plan.
What is the Parish Plan and what is its purpose?
A Parish Plan is a comprehensive look at all the local issues which are seen as important by members of the community. The purpose is that it should become a guide upon which the local Parish Council and Herefordshire Council and other bodies can make decisions affecting Dorstone. It should also contain an agreed Action Plan to attempt to tackle any problems/improvements identified. Some of these may be dealt with as we go and would not have to wait until the final plan is published.
Consulting the Community
The success and quality of the Plan depends on everyone’s involvement, and therefore we felt it was important to tell everyone about how we plan to tackle this project and how we will be consulting everyone in the Parish.
A very important part of the consultation is a Questionnaire to find out everyone’s views. To help us prepare the Questionnaire we want to ensure that we are concentrating on the right issues.
Parish Plan Update Meeting Sunday 13th January 2008
50+ persons were present. Colin Thomas (Chairman) gave a presentation, which outlined the progress so far, and the time plan for the next 12 months.
Points Raised
- Housing needs and future planning - a housing needs survey might well be incorporated in the final questionnaire.
- Environmental aspect to the plan.
- Under 18s - a separate meeting and questionnaire will be issued to ensure that their comments were taken into account.
- Would there be a long waiting time before items were dealt with – would everything have to wait until the Parish Plan was finalised? Immediate concerns could be followed up as soon as they are raised – i.e. transport issues take a long time, but some things might be fast-tracked.
- Very dangerous to cross from church to play area, esp. for children. The whole issue of speed of traffic is a serious one for the parish, as the permitted speed limit through the village is officially 60m.p.h.
We also asked people to fill in a simple form:
- what you like
- what you don’t like
- what needs to be improved in Dorstone.
There were a total of 20 replies received out of 130 sent out.
Traffic/speed and Village Hall/Playing fields had elicited the most comments, and to follow these up representatives will ascertain the feelings from members of the various organisations in the Parish and their plans for the next 5 years - Shop Association, WI, Playing Fields, PCC/church, Village Hall, Playgroup, GV YFC, Chapel, Tourism GVE.
Also using the information from these forms, several informal discussion groups of about 10 people each will be arranged to explore in more detail the issues being raised.
Parish Plan Update - July 2008
The main activity of the Parish Plan Steering Group since the update meeting in January has been to complete consultations to determine the main issues facing the parish and then to prepare a questionnaire to obtain detailed views of everyone in the parish on these issues.
The questionnaire is now being finalised and it is planned to deliver it to everyone, including a youth questionnaire for under 18s, in the first week of September.
This is a vital stage in the preparation of the plan in order to ensure that we have a comprehensive view from as many people as possible on the identified topics which are:-
- Housing
- Planning and conservation
- Traffic
- Transport
- Environment
- Communications
- Village facilities and leisure
- Village services
Your help in completing these questionnaires will be much appreciated as your views form the basis of the plan.
Parish Plan Update - October 2008
Thank you to all parishioners who completed the recent Parish Plan Questionnaire and to the 14 volunteers who delivered and collected them.
Questionnaires were delivered to 154 occupied houses in the Parish - 136 households replied which is an amazing 88% return.
Completed questionnaires have now been sent for analysis by Herefordshire Research Services. In terms of individuals we can see that 81% of adult residents returned a completed questionnaire and 69% of under-18s returned theirs.We hope to have the result of the analysis by early December but in view of the large number returned it may take longer than expected!
These are very good figures and reflect well on the residents enthusiasm for the future of the Parish.
The Prize draw will take place in November and I will keep you informed of the progress of the Parish Plan through our magazine and this Website
Parish Plan Update - November 2008
Those of you who visit the Dorstone Web Site or have seen the October report in the Link Magazine will know what we had a tremendous response to our Parish Plan Questionnaire. Questionnaires were delivered to 154 occupied houses in the Parish – 136 households replied which an amazing 88% return.
The completed questionnaires were sent for analysis to the Herefordshire Council Research team, who tell us that 81% of adult residents returned a completed questionnaire and 69% of under-18s returned theirs. From their experience with other Parish Plan questionnaires in the County, 50% is usually considered very good, so our result is brilliant and therefore a big thanks should be extended to everyone who took the time and trouble to complete the forms.
The Research Team had indicated that they hoped to complete their work by early December but they are currently in the middle of completing work on another two big surveys, so it is unlikely that we will have their analysis back in sufficient time to report to the Parish at an Open Meeting before Christmas. However this will only involve a short delay and we plan to present their findings to a meeting in the Village Hall on Sunday January 11th 2009 – probably late afternoon. So please make a note of this date and we will confirm exact arrangements nearer the time. We will carry out the cash prize draw for completing the forms at this meeting.
The excellent response to the Questionnaire means that we can confidently use the information as a representative view of parishioners and give us a firm basis to prepare the most important part of this project - the Action Plan. In the meantime it is encouraging that the idea to develop the “Dorstone Front Room”, described overleaf was prompted by a question in the survey on possible alternative uses for the Village Shop. This is a good early win for the Parish Plan process.
Time Scales for plan
Consultation meetings take place: March 2008
Final Questionnaire prepared, delivered & collected: April - October 2008
Assessment of findings: November - December 2008
Drafting of plan and revisiting any areas necessary: January – March 2009
Full plan prepared: April – June 2009
Publish Plan: July 2009
If you want to offer your help in any way please contact
Colin Thomas - postmaster@colinjthomas.plus.com
or
John Platts - john@platts31.freserve.co.uk
Or any member of the committee