Agenda and minutes

Apologies were received Cllr S Bowles, Mr A Dunbar, Inspector J Davies,  M Nodes, M Simons, Cllr P Strachan, Cllr D Summers and Cllr D Thompson

To review and agree the minutes of the meeting held

RESOLVED

The minutes of the meeting held 16 March 2021 were AGREED as an accurate record.

Review of the last year.

Ms M Parker and the Chairman, Community Board Co-Ordinator, referred to the report circulated with the agenda and the presentation appended to these minutes.

Views on areas of focus:

·         Economy ad Regeneration

·         Environment and Climate Change

·         Highways and Transportation

·         Discussion on CB additional area of focus

The item consisted of discussion, presentations and an interactive session on Google Documents to capture ideas and local areas of concern.

Each Community Board had been allocated additional funds to tackle the 4 areas of focus outlined below:

• Economy and Regeneration.
• Environment and Climate Change.
• Highways and Transportation.
• Health and Wellbeing.

Ms H Dean, Bucks Business First (BBF) and Mr J Grant, local business owner gave a presentation on local regeneration. A copy of the presentation would be appended to these minutes.

To be presented Michelle Parker, Buckinghamshire Council.

The Chairman referred to the papers circulated with the agenda.

£5110 of unallocated funds from 2020/21 had been carried over into 2021/22 giving a total budget for the year of £801,522. It was noted there would be no provision to carry over funds into 2022/23 however it would be possible to allocate funds to be spent on agreed projects for the following year. Unallocated funds would be returned to the central council budget.

Applications for funding could be made online on the Buckinghamshire Council website. More in-depth guidance was now available online following a review in March 2021.Ms M Parker, Community Board co-ordinator, recommended contact her before making an application so she could support and answer questions.

To be presented by Inspector James Davies.

Inspector J Davies gave his apologies. A copy of his local policing update would be appended to these minutes.

·         Public Questions to be considered

·         GP Service provision

·         Community Updates

GP Service provision

There continued to be concerns regarding current and future GP provision in the local area given the high number of new housing developments at different stages of completion. 

• Buckinghamshire Council’s Health and Social Care Committee (HASC) were aware of concerns both locally and throughout Buckinghamshire. Like this board they had asked from reassurances from the Clinical Commissioning Group (CCG) but had found a reluctance to answer.
• Current issues with Popular Grove Surgery, had been raised with the HASC.
• The Chairman felt that the HASC were in a better placed to put pressure on the CCG but recommended a small number of members met to discuss local issues and make sure the HASC was kept aware of them.

HS2 safety fund

The first ever round of applications to this fund had resulted in 35 applications totalling over £4m across Buckinghamshire for £1m of available funding. Applications from within the board area had been rejected at the first stage leading to the following concerns which would be taken as feedback:

• No information had been given as to how decisions had been made and a list of declined/approved applications had not been published. Members of the board felt unable to scrutinise decisions without this information.
• Ms J Wainwright, HS2 Engagement and Funds Officer, had been told by senior members of the Localities Team that Community Boards should not be involved. However, members of this board would like to see consultation with Community Boards and local councillors, neither of whom had been involved. This was felt to be contradictory to the funds aims.
• Ms Parker stated that there had been plans to bring details to the Highways and Infrastructure action group but details had not been available ahead of this meeting.

Views on focus for upcoming meetings.

Ms M Parker, Community Board Co-Ordinator, opened the follow to views on future focus of the Community Board.

The following points were discussed:

• Volunteers were needed to join the action groups for the year ahead, interested parties should contact Mr Parker. Once formed each group would have their own action plan showing areas of work and progress.
• With many ongoing house building projects it was felt to be important to include new residents and their views. There was discussion as to how the community board could reach out to support new residents, some of whom be moving from an urban to rural area. Ms Parker would speak with Halton Parish Councillors to discuss their upcoming fete, which hoped to support this aim, and discuss fast tracking their application for funding to support this.

21 September 2021, 7pm

Tuesday 21 September 2021, 7pm