Creeting St Peter: might there be some tangible benefits from Gateway 14?

Well, work on the infrastructure needed for Gateway 14 is pretty much complete, and construction of the first (and largest) building on the site is approved and underway.

The next issue for our community is the distribution of the Section 106 (Town and Country Planning Act 1990) funds associated with the project, something that we have little experience of. Being a countryside village, as defined by Mid Suffolk District Council, we don’t get much development, and thus we’ve never been assigned any such funds in the thirteen years since I first joined the Parish Council.

I’d attended a Town and Parish Council Liaison Meeting last month, hosted by the District Council, where they updated us on key issues that might impact our sector and communities, and part of that was a presentation by the Communities Team. Their role is to interact with us to improve our relationship and help us to achieve benefits for our towns and villages.

I thought that this might offer an opportunity to deal with some of our key issues - the playground and the Church Room - and so I stopped Simon Lanning, the dedicated team member covering our area, and had a few very polite words. That led to an agreement that a more structured conversation might be helpful. And so, on Tuesday, we met on Teams, accompanied by Josh Holmes, one of his colleagues who specialises in grant applications.

My first question was to confirm the size of the pot, which turned out to be £190,000. Now, that does have to be shared with Stowmarket, but it was noted that Stowmarket do have access to other pots of cash, which means that, whilst we shouldn’t be greedy, a simple division based on population shouldn’t limit our requests.

So, resetting our playground’s slide would be smiled upon, as well as some new equipment if needed. And, whilst the only community building belongs to the Parochial Church Council, as it is the key social hub for the village, funding may well be available to make it, say, accessible for disabled users. Some of the more desperately needed repairs might be covered too, which would be very welcome.

There was also news on the footpath which links the village to Gateway 14, in that funds have been set aside for a major upgrade. Simon and Josh have agreed to seek an update from the County Council in terms of what is happening and when, which is very kind of them.

So, we may see improvements to our village, which would be lovely, and a legacy to future residents.