Herefordshire
From its inception, SCT had always intended that one of its early projects should seek to meet the particular challenge of a rural environment. The sparsity and diversity of most rural communities make it particularly difficult for them to develop a shared agenda and even harder to secure an audience for it among the decision takers in public and other services. The fact that most of those services are based in and often focused on urban areas exacerbates the problem, particularly for those living in the countryside whose pressing needs (for housing, social services, healthcare, child care etc) and lack of influence are obscured by the relative affluence and, sometimes, articulacy of their neighbours.
- St Andrew’s Adforton
Now, in partnership with the New Economics Foundation (nef) and supported by a grant from Regional Action West Midlands’ Every Voice Counts programme, SCT has the opportunity to adapt its model to address the needs of the communities of six rural parishes in north Herefordshire.
- Brampton Bryan
The parishes of Buckton & Coxall, Brampton Bryan, Adforton, Walford, Letton & Newton and Lingen & Willey, all in the County Council Ward of Mortimer, share a single Council, the Border Parish Group which, as a Quality Parish Council, provides the ideal point of entry for the Speakers’ Corner project. It covers an area of approximately six miles east-west and seven miles north-south, with a population of some 500 people living in the three small villages of Adforton, Brampton Bryan and Lingen and the countryside between them.
- Lingen Village Hall
It is proposed that development of the project focus initially on the six parishes but it is hoped that in due course it can be extended to cover the other five parishes of Mortimer Ward (Aymestrey, Leintwardine & Downton, Stapleton, Wigmore and Kinsham)
- Methodist Chapel Lingen
Following a constructive meeting with John Miles, the Chair of the Council, its Clerk Richard Ambrose and the Herefordshire County Councillor for Mortimer Ward, Cllr Olwyn Barnett in the spring and a follow-up towards the end of the year, SCT and nef attended a meeting of the Parish Council in December 2009 to discuss their plans for a programme designed to encourage and enable local people to increase their participation and influence in local policy making and service delivery. But the priority is to find out what matters most to the local community.
The Lingen Meeting
The project’s first public meeting was to have taken place on 7 January but fell victim to the heavy snow which cut off much of Herefordshire. It finally too place at Lingen Village Hall on 15 January, bringing together local residents from Lingen and Adforton and villages between, two parish Councillorsand the SCT/nef team. Over tea and biscuits, the meeting discussed the needs of the local community, what had been achieved over the last few years and what some of the key challenges are today.
What are the priorities for our community?
The next step is to widen the group to involve a broader cross section of the community, agree priorities and draw up a plan of action. Further public meetings will follow in the coming weeks.
