A couple of years ago, I decided to clean a road sign that was annoying me. It seems as though somebody was paying attention, because Suffolk County Council have concluded that this is something that Parish Councils should be taking on.
Suffolk Highways is currently developing its Community Self Help offer. The scheme will aim to enable local community groups, including town and parish councils, to undertake work that Suffolk Highways does not have the budget to undertake.
However, it seems that their intention goes a bit further than just cleaning the odd road sign...
So, how can our communities help? We know that many are willing and able to help in undertaking minor works in their areas. We have been considering what our community self help offer would look like. In order to ensure that our offer meets the needs of the community we approached town and parish councils across Suffolk to better understand what areas communities are most interested in doing for themselves. This is not about communities undertaking work that we are able to and do undertake, but about how communities can add to and undertake more, on top of what we provide.
I can’t say that I’m keen. With a total budget of about £6,000, and a disproportionate amount of road per resident, I can’t see that we could do very much other than to clean the odd road sign, and tidy away any foliage that might be obscuring it. And it does raise the question, once again, as to what the County Council does for villages such as ours.
At our last Parish Council meeting, I did ask our County Councillor if he had any understanding as to what this might imply for us, but he seemed to know as little as we did.
However, we are apparently going to find out at some point this month, and I look forward to discussing it at the Mid Suffolk South meeting of the Suffolk Association of Local Councils, scheduled to take place in a fortnight’s time. I have a funny feeling that I might not be the only person with concerns...
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