Agenda and minutes

Welcome from Cllr Mark Winn, Chairman of the Aylesbury Community Board.

The Chairman welcomed everyone to the meeting.

Apologies were received from Buckinghamshire Councillors T Dixon, S James and D Thompson. Apologies were also received from B Lasoye (Aylesbury Town Council), H Philips (River Thame Conservation Trust), T Burch (Public Health), H Asquith (Youth Concern), and K Ironside (Transitions UK).

To disclose any personal or pecuniary interests.

None.

To review and sign off the actions notes from the meeting on 12 October 2021

At the last meeting action plans were requested from Public Health, these were now available on the Council’s website. 

It was asked whether the Board could fund the purchase of BP measuring machines for residents. This had been looked at by the Health and Wellbeing Action Group and there should be an update given to the next Action Group meeting in March following ongoing discussions with the Public Health team. 

Resolved:

to agree the action notes from the last meeting.

A presentation from the Buckinghamshire Council Community Safety team

To be presented by Chris Geen, Community Safety Team Leader and Serious Organised/Violent Crime Lead

Chris Geen, Community Safety Team Leader and Serious Organised/Violent Crime Lead was in attendance to present the update. Chris’s presentation is appended to the minutes. In addition to going through the slides, the following points were highlighted:

• The importance of local Member engagement.
• The team targeted areas where the team could have the most impact, particularly in the town centre, Whitehill and Southcourt areas. Chris encouraged people to report issues to the team.
• The CCTV review was yet to be finalised and Chris was happy to discuss further with Community Board Members outside of the meeting.
• Safety of women and girls within the town centre during the night time economy was discussed. This would sit under the new Statutory Serious Violence Duty. The Police would also be running an awareness week during March. A sub group would be set up shortly to co-ordinate activities in this area and the Community Board would welcome being part of discussions. There were already some schemes within the town centre to provide safe spaces.
• A response would be provided on whether the Aylesbury Street Wardens would be centrally funded moving forward as they had initially been funded through the Board. (Action: Chris Geen)

To be presented by Insp. James Davies

Inspector James Davies was in attendance to provide an update on the work of Thames Valley Police in the Community Board area. The following points were highlighted:

• Community Board boundaries differed slightly to the boundaries used by the police for Aylesbury Vale. Residential burglaries had increased 3% on last year and an increase in violence with injury offences of 21% had been seen. This had been a national trend. Overall there was a 20% increase on crime across Aylesbury Vale.
• Environmental audits were being undertaken, these included the areas of Whitehill, Alfred Rose Park, and Edinburgh Playing Fields.
• An operation was underway, funded by the Home Office which aimed to increase engagement with residents to focus on reducing violent crime. This included increased stop searches, building links with young people and making visits to people who were known to be involved in knife carrying.
• Members and residents were encouraged to report suspicious activities seen on Facebook to the Police as the force was unable to continually monitor social media channels.
• Street drinkers within the town centre were discussed, the Aylesbury Street Wardens may be able to support in this area and the Board recognised that work with licensed premises within the town centre was required.
• In relation to the potential re-development of Kingsbury Square and Market Square, a Member commented that the police response to the consultation had appeared quite negative given that the redevelopment aimed to be built on garden town principles. Insp. Davies advised that the response would have been from a police perspective identifying risk areas, however recognised that improvements should encourage the anti-social elements away as more people used the areas.  

To present and discuss the main findings from the Youth Views survey, produced by Aylesbury Youth Action, The Cloudy Foundation, and the Aylesbury Community Board

Jack Pearce, Community Board Co-ordinator and Simon Rudiger, Aylesbury Youth Action reported the main findings from the Youth Views survey, produced by Aylesbury Youth Action, The Cloudy Foundation, and the Aylesbury Community Board. Presentation slides are appended to the minutes which detail the survey results, demographics of respondents and highlighted the themes identified. In addition to the information appended, the following points were highlighted:

• An action was to undertake the survey annually, to get more young people involved and benchmark responses.  A smaller working group would be convened to go through results in further detail.
• Giselle Hobbs, Mandeville School offered support from her school to help more students become involved in the process and contact details were passed to Jack and Simon.
• Monica Bergh, Family Support Service advised that Youth Concern had been commissioned to do a piece of work around youth needs in the town, and were assessing the viability of a youth hub. Monica was happy to link in with Simon and Jack and bring the next steps back to the Community Board.
• A comment was made about the size of the survey, with the suggestion that the next one be reduced from 64 questions.

• Enhancing the Lives of our Youth- Jack Pearce
• Health, Wellbeing & Community Safety - Cllr Susan Morgan
• Economic Recovery- Cllr Susan Morgan
• Improving the Environment- Cllr Sarah James
• Road Safety, Highways & Infrastructure- Cllr Mark Winn

Enhancing the Lives of our Youth – Jack Pearce

• The Action Group would be looking further at the results of the Youth Survey and taking youth views forward.
• A Health and Wellbeing Fayre had been held at the Grange School and was well received by young people and partners. A toolkit was being worked on to roll out across schools in Aylesbury.

Improving the Environment – Cllr Sarah James

• The Action Group explored ways to prevent littering across Aylesbury and the Ayesbury Wombles had been very active in this area and had recently received Board funding to purchase an electric vehicle.
• There would be a focus on tree planting as part of the Queen’s Green Canopy initiative and a funding application to plant a living wall was in progress. Difficulties in identifying sites for planting were discussed, information on tree planting was available on the Council’s website and would be circulated to Board Members (Action: Jack Pearce)

Road Safety, Highways and Infrastructure – Cllr Mark Winn

• Installation of outdoor gyms in Fairford Leys and Buckingham Park were being explored as well as a BMX pump track which had been an area of need raised in the Youth Views Survey.
• Members, schools and road safety colleagues were looking at potential projects to address speeding traffic.
• Around 34 priority Highway Code and Parking projects had been put forward for agreement, these included double yellow lines, keep clear signage and improved accessibility such as dropped kerbs.

Health, Wellbeing and Community Safety – Cllr Susan Morgan

• Transitions UK had recently spoken to the group about their transgender treatment clinic at the Mandeville practice. The group was focussing on what could be set up with partners to address cardiovascular disease, obesity and diabetes. 

Economic Recovery - Cllr Susan Morgan

• There were still places available on the ‘Be your own boss project’, run by Bucks Business First (BBF). This action group would be reviewed as it had not been working as well as had been hoped. Feedback on the next steps would be provided at the next CB meeting.

Members of the Board discussed funding cuts to Community Boards and the need to re-visit priorities as funding for the next municipal year became known. The Board also heard that a ‘levelling up’ working group had been set up by the Leader of the Council to look at ways to support areas of deprivation, particularly in Aylesbury and High Wycombe. This involved working with health partners and VCS groups.

To address questions from the public. Questions to be submitted in advance of the meeting to aylesburycb@buckinghamshire.gov.uk.

·       One public question had been received from Giselle Hobbs, Mandeville School which raised concerns around road safety around the school at the start and end of the school day. The Board would form a working group of local Councillors, road safety officers and school staff to discuss and take ideas forward. The school travel team had also offered to support the school by looking at travel plans and other areas of help. A Member raised potential provision for a lollipop person and queried whether this would be a possibility (Action: Jack Pearce).

·       The Chairman reported that as part of the Queen’s Platinum Jubilee celebrations people could visit the Buckinghamshire Council website to apply for street closures in their area.

·       A consultation on improvements to the Emerald Way cycleway was open for people to comment on, the consultation would close on 9 March.

·       The Helping Hand household support fund was also highlighted and Board Members encouraged to share details with residents in need of support.

To be presented by Mark Winn, Chairman of the Aylesbury Community Board.

An update was received on funded projects. The Chairman highlighted a number of schemes funded and the following additional points were raised:

In terms of quality assurance, the board was advised that end of project evaluations were undertaken and those who received funding were required to provide reporting information on how funds were spent and provide feedback on their respective projects. As the end of the municipal year approached, organisations were being contacted and this information could be shared with the Community Board. Community Board Members were also welcome to visit projects and see them in action.  

April 2022 (tbc).

The Chairman advised that he hoped the next meeting would be in person and at this meeting the Proud of Bucks awards would be publicly awarded. The meeting will take place in April and a date and venue will be circulated as soon as confirmed.