Agenda item

·       Community Communications

·       Community Eco Projects

·       Tackling ASB

·       Health & Wellbeing:

a.     Loneliness & Isolation of Older People

b.     Rural Isolation of Families & Younger People

c.     Physical Health & Wellbeing

d.     Mental Health & Wellbeing

e.     Dementia

·       Youth Engagement

Details of the Southern Wiltshire Work Plan were available online in Supplement 1 to the Agenda.

The Plan would form the basis of the Board’s work with parishes and partners, a plan that covers everything we know about from the conversations we have already had.

There had also been a Health & Wellbeing workshop and a separate Parish Council workshop about the Plan.

Report on the agenda about a communications survey we ran. It helped us to find out how community communications were happening, details were available in Appendix 2 – p21 of the online supplement.

Rosie Wilkinson and Cllr Britton worked together to compile a new eco-friendly Eco Villages Directory, details were available in Appendix 3 – p23 of the online supplement.

The emphasis of the directory was to guide people towards down to earth, practical and achievable projects, things that could be really worthwhile community projects. Rosie Wilkinson had put in a great deal of work, the Chairman thanked her for all she has done. 

The main 5 priorities were detailed in Appendix 1.

Some other examples of projects happening around the area were the Make a Friend be a Friend project. The Board would work with them to pilot a scheme in Downton to help tackle loneliness and isolation of older people.

Support for youth clubs to help them get up and running again after the lockdown eases.

South West region Royal Navy youth engagement officers had approached Karen to see how they could help with youth engagement.

The Plan would be looked at, at the first meeting of the new Area Board in May. It was proposed that a rolling prioritisation system like that used in CATG, may be useful if adopted for the Plan.

The report contained recommendations for members to consider.

Questions and comments:

The Chairman noted that pages 13 – 19 of the online supplement really demonstrated the huge range of work that Karen was busy with in-between area boards.

The Board was asked to make a recommendation to the new Board to adopt the Plan.

Chris Hall – In Downton, we were looking at having a skateboard event for the young people, was that something that could be considered?

Answer: KL – yes that was something we could help with.

Cllr Clewer noted that the programme looked good, and that perhaps some of the community communication issues may be challenging.

The Chairman hoped that in time opportunities could be spotted to bring groups together that were doing the same work to benefit more greatly.

Decision

The Board agreed:

(1)         To recommend the newly elected Area Board to approve and adopt the attached Work Plan (appendix 1)

(2)         To note the results from the community communications survey in Appendix 2, and considers the key findings, with a view to agreeing key actions intended to strengthen communications within, between and for the benefit of parishes and the community area as a whole.

(3)         To adopt the new local Eco Friendly Villages directory, which has been produced to help the community area increase activity associated with the target of Wiltshire becoming a carbon neutral county by 2030, and to proactively encourage all in their divisions to adopt some of the initiatives listed in the directory.

(4)         To recommend that a similar rolling prioritisation process to that followed by the Community Area Transport Group (CATG) – agreeing which top 5 pieces of work on the attached plan it will focus on in 2021/22 be adopted by the new Board.

(5)         To recommend that the new Area Board prioritise its resources including funding upon those issues identified in the status report.

(6)         To recommend that the new Area Board requests the Community Engagement Manager to work with key partners, agencies and community groups to encourage them to consider where they are best placed to take actions around the priorities identified.

(7)         That regular updates be submitted to the Area Board on progress made in relation to its own action plan.

(8)         That the Area Board expresses its thanks to those who gave their time to help bring this report and its appendices together.