It's been a pretty hectic year as Chair of my small, but perfectly formed, Parish Council. The impact of the pandemic on our community has been challenging enough, but a string of controversial planning applications affecting the village have made life that bit harder.
I was therefore slightly perplexed to receive an e-mail via our Clerk offering a meeting with the two members of the newly formed Communities - Planning and Engagement team, who wanted to talk to us about the Gateway 14 project and planning application. A bit late in the day was my initial thought, and there was a temptation to give the thing a miss - I'm busy and a bit stressed, and given that the consultation period is now closed, there seemed on initial reflection to be little point. But they were keen, and I'm a kindly soul (occasionally), so I asked Jennie, our Parish Clerk, to arrange a get together.
I admit that it had somewhat slipped my mind when my iPhone buzzed with a reminder an hour before the assigned time. We're gracious hosts in the Creetings, however, and I made sure to be in front of my desktop in good time.
As it turned out, it was just the four of us, Helen and Simon from Mid Suffolk, Jennie, our Clerk, and me, which rather let me take most of the scheduled hour bemoaning the fate of small Parish Councils in the face of large developments and District Councils who occasionally give the impression that we're a bit of a nuisance.
And there is a problem. How does a volunteer Parish Council of five, with a budget of £5,500 per annum and a very part-time Clerk properly scrutinise and respond to a planning application of the scale of Gateway 14? How can we consider elements like environmental degradation, traffic plans, design codes and planning policy without training and, most importantly, time? Is it reasonable to expect five people, all of whom have full-time jobs and families, to give up hours and hours of their time to review 155 documents, develop sufficient understanding of the technical arguments and meaningfully consult village residents in, potentially, four weeks?
Fortunately, it wasn't just me kvetching about Gateway 14 (and yes, it is stressful, and yes, I fret about it more than perhaps I should).
We did talk about how the District Council communicates. So, for example, the Council decides to offer grants for small businesses affected by the pandemic. I signed up to the Council's press releases some years ago, and so I get the press release and, because I'm public-spirited enough, I publicise the information via the village's informal Facebook group. If you're a resident of Creeting St Peter, how would you find out otherwise? Do you read the local newspapers? Possibly. Do you check the Council's website frequently, just in case? Really? How sad are you?
I likened it to the theory that a Parish Council can simply rely on the Parish noticeboard to inform and advise. It's static, you have to go to it and, if you don't have to walk past it, would you really stop to check it frequently?
We discussed some ideas for getting messages from the Council to a larger audience through Parishes, and I'll be interested to see if anything comes of it. In truth, most reasonable people understand that, when any organisation is struggling for resources, communication tends to fall by the wayside - officers are, not surprisingly, trying to do their core jobs and communicating to the public doesn't usually fall into the category of essential in so far as it is a mandatory requirement.
In the end, it became more of a feedback session than anything else and, as I'm a relatively thoughtful soul, I have given much thought to questions of governance over the years. I only hope that I haven't scared them...
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