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What has happened so far (looking backwards from now) :
20th December 2006
The main report from the project was presented as a draft to the Long Melford Parish Council on Tuesday evening 19th December, and was accepted.
The next stage will be a public meeting before the end of January 2007, to present the results and the list of actions that has been proposed. Before that we have to turn the draft report into something more respectable and put together a summary to go to everyone in the village.
The January public meeting will be about the last thing for the present Steering Group. After that they expect to hand over to a much smaller team to watch over and help the action programme as it goes forward.
17th September 2006
The Quiz Night was a huge success. Expecting just over 60 people to come, there were actually 90 on the night, so it was very snug! A splendid set of questions prepared by Rob Guyton and Judi Walton kept everyone entertained, frustrated and sometimes jubilant throughout the evening (do you know the proper names of all the pasta shapes you get from the supermarket?). My own favourite event was making paper aeroplanes, but I have to admit that my effort didn't fly at all well . . . rather like a falling leaf.
As a result, we have reached our money-raising target with a bit to spare. Big vote of thanks to all those organising it, including the raffle and the food.
In the meanwhile the work of analysis is still going on and we are starting to write up the results into a report. It has taken a good deal longer than expected to do the analysis. This is partly because we have found that people gave such good and detailed answers that it is worth digging deeper than we expected to be able to, and partly because it has turned out to be a specialist job done by one person (who can't do it full time). It seems to be going well, and should make the final report interesting to read.
There are a lot of things that came out of the questionnaire surveys where most people in the village feel that something needs to be done. All of these need to be collected into an 'Action Plan' as part of the report, to show a possible way forward. Priorities will be important, as we shan't be able to do everything at once.
28th May 2006
There's not a lot to report yet, but the massive job of putting the data from the Household Questionnaire into a database has gone well, and is not far from finishing. Well over two-thirds of the forms have been keyed in, and there are only three more bundles to give out to the kind and hard-working team that have been doing the input.
We are delighted that so many people chose to take part. We have had forms back from just over 75% of the houses where they could be delivered (a few were empty, or the occupiers were away for a long spell). The volunteers who distributed them and collected so many back again have done a tremendous job; well beyond the call of duty. We are very grateful indeed to all of them.
Looking at a good handful of the forms that have come in, there are several things that are very positive to notice.
First, perhaps, there have been a surprising number of people (well over 100) who have volunteered to help with one activity or another in the village, using the tear-off back page. That means there should be a good chance of getting some useful initiatives going before too long.
Next, almost everybody took the trouble to fill in the very last question, (which was a difficult one about priorities). That will help tremendously when we put together the 'Action Plan' later in the Summer, to lay out what we are going to do about all the suggestions and recommendations that people have made.
Finally, there are a great many written suggestions in the returned forms; some directly in answer to a question, others on separate sheets or written in the margins. Those are all going to be recorded and analysed in parallel to the formal question answers, so that everything that has been said can be put into the discussion before we decide what to do next. As a matter of principle we believe that if a resident felt it was worth their while to write something down, it has to be worth the team's while to take it seriously, read and include it in our discussions.
The Young People's Questionnaire has also gone very well. Over a hundred forms were returned, and again they are full of sensible suggestions as well as straight answers. We are just beginning to key those, too, into a database (a different one). It is good that so many of that age group (11 to 16) were prepared to give their time to help us towards some answers.
7th May 2006
The Household Questionnaire seems to have gone very well. A big "THANK YOU" to everyone involved.
The army of volunteers has distributed the questionnaire to almost all the homes in the parish, and most of them have been collected back again, too. A very small number of houses were missed out the first time round, often because people were away. There is still time for anyone who has missed out and wants to have their say to do so. Get in touch with the Parish Office (Linda Goodban on 01787 378084) or email <rob@melforward.org.uk>
Of course you don't have to do it if you don't want to. A few people have told us that as we took the questionnaires round.
It is nice to see that people have worked hard to fill in all of the answers that make sense for them. Only a very few got tired and stopped half way through! Even when that happened we are grateful, though, for what they were able to tell us in the first half.
Another encouraging thing is that quite a few people used the form on the inside back cover to say that they would be interested in helping with some of the voluntary work suggested by the questions in the middle. Just as well, since you can't run things in a village like this without a fair few people to help.
A small team of volunteers are now putting the data from the questionnaire forms into a database so that it can be analysed. It is a long job. Just filling in the questionnaire could take half an hour or more, and it takes at least 15 minutes to put it into a computer afterwards. We hope to finish the input by the end of May. If anyone else would like to help, we'd be very grateful. All you need is a PC and several hours of time. Training and software we supply! (phone Roger on 01787 311165 or email <roger@melforward.org.uk>)
The Young People's Questionnaire was distributed at the same time as the household one. We have had several hundred returned, too, which is encouraging. The computer-based version was not very popular, which surprised us, but it makes no difference to the end results. We haven't started to put those into a database yet, but hope to finish that by the end of May as well.
The Business Community is also going to be asked for its views. A separate questionnaire is being developed, and the questions will be asked during May if all goes well.
Visitors to the village have an opportunity to say what they think, too. We can only hope to get a small sample here, compared with the total number that come to Melford, but several hundred forms have been given out, and quite a lot have came back already. We hope for many more in the next few weeks.
28th March 2006
The Household Questionnaire
The household questionnaire is finished, and ready for distribution. A lot of people have worked hard to make it as good as possible, and we just hope that we have done it well enough.
There is quite a lot of it; 36 sides of A4 altogether. That is mainly because there were almost too many questions raised at the public meetings. It was quite difficult to get them all in properly. We have ended up with ninety five. At the same time, they do cover a lot of interesting items, and they are ones that really matter to the people who live here.
When we had the right questions, the next stage was to lay them out so that people can read them easily and give their answers without getting lost or distracted. We have used quite a large size of print, and left big spaces for everyone to fill in their ticks and crosses (even if they have short sight and a blunt pencil!) There are a few local photos to liven it up visually and to fill in the gaps.
1800 copies are ready for distribution, and should be with all households throughout the parish in the next couple of weeks. We hope to collect most of them back by Easter to start the data collection process and build a database of local opinions.
The Young People's Questionnaire
One of the most important things for younger people is transport to get to and from activities outside the village. There are several important questions, too, about what activities are or could be provided here within the parish. We hope that a good proportion of the 400 or so young people in Long Melford will fill in the special questionnaire either on paper or interactively on a PC. (The volunteers taking round the paper versions have a few CDs with the interactive version as well. It can also be downloaded from a site named on the front of the paper version.)
The Young People's Questionnaire is going to be distributed at the same time as the main Household Questionnaire, but if anyone has been missed out, give us a call (01787 378084 or 378253) or send an email.
3rd March 2006
Sorting out the questions
It must all have seemed to go a bit quiet over the last couple of months. In fact, the team have been hard at work sorting out the ideas that came up from the meetings at the end of last year. The next big thing is going to be a questionnaire to all the residents, in order to find out what people really think about each of the main ideas that have come up. We need to know not just that some people think it is a good idea to do something about cycleways, for example, but how many people, and how strongly they feel.
A lot of work has been going into designing the questionnaire itself. We do want to ask all the questions that matter, but obviously don't want to have more than are strictly necessary. We are trying to make it easy to fill in, but at the same time allow everone to have their say on the things that they feel are really important.
The questionnaire is aimed at the end of March/beginning of April, and it will then take several weeks to sort out the answers. The questionnaire forms are anonymous, so we shall not know who said what, but we shall be tracking which area of the village they come from, so if people at the South end feel differently from the people on the East, we shall be able to see it.
Meanwhile, other members of the Steering Group are working on businesses, visitors and young people especially, and making contacts with the councils, the Western Suffolk Strategic Partnership (a planning group) and others we hope to influence with the final report.
The Steering Group met on 9th January, and again on 6th February to keep things moving forward. Besides the work on the questionnaires, some time has been spent on publicity. One of the results is that there is now a small 'flyer' distributed to shops, pubs, restaurants and the like to tell everyone what we are up to.
6th December 2005
Likes, dislikes, 'wants' and 'don’t wants' jostle for position in the Melford Parish Plan
Too many empty shops. A bus shelter. An annual mobility scooter race. A skateboard park. A traffic island. A bank. These were some of the ideas and opinions – practical and not so practical – which were expressed at a recent meeting on the development of Long Melford. Held in the Village Hall on Tuesday 6 December, about a thousand likes, dislikes, wants and don’t wants were pasted on the walls.
This was one of the early stages in producing a plan for the parish which will be a distillation of these and other ideas and which will be published in 2006. About 100 Melford residents came and went during the afternoon, leaving their pet schemes in the form of about 350 sticky notes on the walls.
Forty or fifty more came in the evening and added their comments. If contributors agreed with one or more of the notes, they ticked them and at the end of the day some of the notes had 12 or more ticks on them.
The sticky notes were grouped according to subject matter such as transport and traffic, the elderly, the young, entertainment, and business - 13 groups in all. One of the most popular was traffic and transport with all kinds of ideas for improving parking, installing traffic islands in Hall Street and linking up cycleways. A popular idea was an additional traffic island near the fire station. Another was closing the Church Walk access to the Upper Green and opening an access from the Clare-Bury Road, thus reducing the traffic going through the dangerous Black Lion corner.
On the subject of the number of shops /businesses and the number of dwellings in the village, on the whole note-stickers were happy with the proportions as they are. They were certainly not in favour of converting shops into homes. Some notes went into detail, pointing out that as soon as commerce starts to fade away, the village starts to die. One note, backed up by a forest of ticks, suggested that rents on empty shops should be reduced temporarily until economic conditions improve. This would hopefully encourage tenants to set up business and stop the drain of commercial enterprises.
More ideas are welcome and readers are urged to add their two penn’orth. They can e-mail rob@melforward.org.uk and they can obtain more information from this site . Notes dropped through the letter box of the Parish Council offices will find their way to the steering group responsible for putting the plan together. They should be addressed: Long Melford Parish Plan.
When the steering group is happy that as many ideas as possible have been collected from local residents, other ideas, which have been successful in other parish plans, will be added. From this huge data base the Steering Group will put together a questionnaire which will be delivered personally to every parish resident and business. Current aim is to get the questionnaire into people's hands at the end of March 2006, and collect it again a few days later. From the answers received, the final parish plan will be written.
24th October 2005
There was an open meeting in the Community Centre. The two things on the agenda were to make contact again with those who had volunteered to help at the initial meeting, and to start to gather ideas about the questions that will eventually be put into the questionnaires.David Burch as Vice-Chairman of the Parish Council opened the meeting, saying that it was encouraging to have so many people attend. He explained that the Parish Council itself has limited powers, so the aim of the plan is to help informed lobbying. He warned that even the best parish plans cannot achieve everything that one might wish.
Don Watson then took over, as Chairman of the Steering Group, and outlined the work that had been done since the group was set up. There had been a lot of organisational effort, leading to four Working Groups to deal with different tasks. One of the achievements was that Working Group 1 had prepared a submission to Suffolk ACRE for a DEFRA grant, together with a budget and timetable. [It was announced a little later in the meeting that the grant has now been agreed, so that the project can go ahead.]
Roger Kistruck (Steering Group Secretary) spoke about how volunteers might help the project. In a few months time there will be a substantial questionnaire to distribute to all the houses in the parish and collect again after a suitable interval. We are thinking of having a team of 'Street Representatives' to do this, and would be delighted if any of the volunteers would like to take part. The role involves :
a) - delivering and collecting questionnaires to and from a set group of houses. We are thinking of 15-20 per person, so as not to make the load too heavy.
b) - helping to test and check the draft version of the questionnaire before it is printed, to iron out the last few mistakes before we go to press with the final version.
c) - to act as part of the informal communication channel between the Steering Group and the rest of the village, to help bring suggestions forward, and to keep others informed about what is happening.
Jane Burch (Vice-Chairman) talked about finding out what topics should be covered in the survey. These are to be the ones that matter to all the communities in the village, and not just to the members of the Steering Group. She had brought a number of suggestion sheets under different headings, and she urged those present to put their ideas down before the conclusion of the meeting.
Paul Rylott reinforced Jane's message with a number of examples, and emphasised that even way-out ideas should be considered. It would be better to put them forward now for discussion and debate than to let them go by and regret it later.
The discussion touched on the mechanics of doing a successful survey. Some of the points made were that :
It would be better to have a 'base questionnaire' with 'supplementaries' rather than several separate questionnaires for different groups of residents.
There should not be too many questions, and the presentation and appearance of the document were important.
A blank area is needed for 'other comments'.
There might be problems with large households if only one questionnaire had to cover several members' responses (the model used by the 'VA for Windows' software).
Great care will be taken to make responses anonymous if that is what the user wishes.
The 'Street Reps' will be given training, identification badges, blank envelopes for collecting the questionnaires, and a defined list of houses to work with.
There were many other helpful suggestions too, ranging from a prize draw to encourage responses, to a labelled public 'drop-in' box for questionnaires to be returned out of hours.
At the close, many of those present did make suggestions on the forms prepared by Jane. The results will be analysed in the Working Groups, and will now form part of the early input to the design of the questionnaires.
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3rd October 2005
The Steering Group met. The grant submission had been made to Suffolk ACRE. The first letter of support had been received from an MEP (Jeffrey Titford). Philip Gibson, from Lavenham was present as a guest, and spoke about the (excellent) village appraisal done by Lavenham over several years around the millenium. This is now being adopted as part of the local plan infrastructure by Babergh DC. Some very helpful advice was also reported by WG3 from the parish of Layham who did a parish plan a couple of years ago. WG4 have been working on which communities within Long Melford need to be consulted in the course of the plan. The picture is becoming clearer as a result.It was decided that it was high time the Steering Group made contact again with those who had volunteered to help at the initial meeting on 30th June. The Parish Council should also be invited, together with representatives from several of the village organisations and probably other members of the public too. A date has since been fixed for Monday 24th October at 19:30 in the Old School Community Centre.
21st September 2005
The Business Association voted to contribute £100 towards funding the plan. This is excellent news, as their support helps very much to make the case to DEFRA and others for the remainder of the funding. As a large parish, our budget for the Long Melford plan is inevitably larger than those of many other parishes. This makes it difficult for a funding panel with limited resources and many parishes calling on them. In our final grant submission we are asking for £2839 jointly from DEFRA and Babergh DC.
5th September 2005
The Steering Group met again, and approved a draft timetable that had been prepared by Judi Walton, and a draft budget prepared by Roger Kistruck, (with a lot of help from his friends in WG1!). These are crucial papers for the grant submission which is due at the end of the month. It was agreed to ask for a funding contribution from the Long Melford Business Association and also from Babergh DC.
1st September 2005
Our local County Councillor, Richard Kemp, had arranged a contribution of £100 from the Suffolk CC Locality Budget towards the project costs, and we hear that it is agreed. This is welcome news, as it helps to show the width of support for the plan within the village community.
1st August 2005
The Steering Group met and elected officers:
Chairman Don Watson Vice Chair Rob Guyton Vice Chair Jane Burch Secretary
Roger Kistruck Treasurer Judi Walton Minutes Secretary Judi Walton Vice Treasurer Andrea Coe Publicity Officer Keld Fenwick Four 'Working Groups' were also set up to deal with the different aspects of preparing the plan. The most urgent task facing the Steering Group was preparing a budget for the project to go to Suffolk ACRE as part of a request for funds. According to the rules, we cannot spend any money until a grant has been agreed, but a lot of work is needed to get the grant submission together in the required format.
23rd July 2005
Four members of the Steering Group attended a 'Parish Plan Application' workshop in Ipswich run by Suffolk ACRE. It was a good morning's work, and clarified a lot of the background and potential problems in doing the project. We were given several very useful suggestions about how to involve people in the planning process, and how to put together a budget and apply for funding. (This is the essential first step to allow the project to go ahead officially.)The four members will report to the next meeting of the Steering Group on 1st August.
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16th July 2005
At the Long Melford Street Fair, a large poster was displayed, and members of the Steering Group talked to passers-by and distributed leaflets. The aim was to keep as many people as possible informed, and to make contact with those interested in making a contribution, or just keeping in touch.
30th June 2005
Judi Walton, as Chairperson of the Parish Council, called a public meeting on 30th June 2005. That meeting supported the idea of a plan and produced a list of volunteers to form a steering group and to help in other ways.The Steering Group had its first meeting on 12th July 2005. Four members will attend a training session in Ipswich on 23rd July. There will be some publicity for the plan at the Village Street Fair on Saturday 16th July 2005, with the aim of finding interested people (both residents of the village and others) who would like to keep in touch and possibly contribute as the plan develops.
The next meeting of the Steering Group will be on 1st August 2005.
The First Press Release :
"On Thursday 30th June, a public meeting was held in Long Melford Village Hall with a view to setting up a steering group to formulate a parish plan.
Sixty-four members of the public attended the meeting, which was chaired by Judi Walton, Chairperson of Long Melford Parish Council. Ms Walton gave a brief introduction, touching on the role of the Parish Council and how she would like to take the opportunity to make the Council more proactive.
Annette Gray, the Rural Development Officer of Suffolk ACRE, then gave a detailed presentation on the purpose of a parish plan and the benefits it could have for the village, by taking a holistic approach to the needs of the community, and feeding its findings into the policies of the District and County Councils. Annette Gray was very candid in admitting that it would be a process that would involve commitment and many hours of work. Questions were taken from the floor on funding, training, the possibility of conflict with the Parish Council and the timescale needed.
Members of the public offered their ideas on the kinds of issues that a Long Melford Parish Plan should be addressing. These included:
• Facilities and leisure activities for the young
• Affordable housing for young people
• Health and transport within the community
• Traffic calming
• Policing
• Accessibility for the disabled or mobility-restricted people
• Noise pollution
• SignageMs Walton then asked those present if it was felt that there was a wish to proceed with setting up a steering group to develop a parish plan. A show of hands gave almost unanimous approval and names for members of the steering group were suggested. The Steering Group will be made up of Roy Adams, Jane Burch, Andrea Coe, Keld Fenwick, Rob Guyton, Dudley Kemp, Roger Kistruck, Patrick Kohler, Paul Rylott and Don Watson. These will be joined by two representatives from the Parish Council. A list was also compiled of those who would be willing to be involved in other ways.
The first meeting of the Steering Group is scheduled to take place on Tuesday 12th July."
Contact
emails addressed to <planning@longmelford.co.uk> will be circulated to all members of the Steering Group.
NB From the point of view of Privacy Protection, personal information (such as names and email addresses) collected for this Parish Plan will not be used for any other purpose, and will not be disclosed to third parties in any form.
