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Can You Help Your Village? |
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Written by Helen Glanville
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Saturday, 23 February 2008 19:45 |
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This is something of an impassioned plea on behalf of the Woodford Halse Parish Plan committee, which has recently been drawn together from local residents to serve the village as a focal point to prepare a document that summarises the current needs, desires and successes within our community that we can use to lobby local government agencies and institutions in an attempt to improve services and obtain support for community activities. We believe that the Parish Plan committee, which has the support of Northamptonshire County Council, Daventry District Council, the Parish Council and Northamptonshire ACRE, will be able to make a real difference for the village, although these are very early days for us.
We are acutely aware of the fact that there are a wide number of organisations in the village representing the residents' views in one way or another and it would make sense if the Parish Plan Committee could act as a focal point for each of these community-led organisations to concentrate their points of view.
We all share in our desire to improve Woodford Halse for the community at large and, as there is clearly strength in numbers, we are asking for your input so that we may jointly press our points home to the district and county councils more effectively with one voice as a village. Clearly, there are going to be distinct needs and views in the various segments of the community that will always differ, so we wouldn't suggest that all the committees join as one, but shouldnÂ’t we speak with the loudest voice we can muster?
To help the Parish Plan committee in its task, we are to use the results of the 'Planning for RealÂ’ mapping exercise conducted last summer, as well as comments from a number of events held by Northamptonshire County Council last year. Sadly this only managed to stir up a 13% response rate, so large segments of the community and their views are not going to be represented; this is where I sincerely hope you will be able help.
These are very early days for the Parish Plan committee and we are only just writing our constitution, nonetheless, we strongly believe that the sooner we can forge wider community links the better, as we will be more informed as to the wider needs and wishes of the residents. This is where we hope you will be able to help; we are looking for both members of existing resident-led committees and enthusiastic individuals to join us. So, if you are interested in getting involved with the Parish Plan or would like us to know about the schemes that you or your Association's members would like to put forward for inclusion in the Parish Plan, please get in touch with our Chairman, Neville Grunwald by email at
This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it
or by telephone on 262909.
We look forward to hearing from you.
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