At Preston Road Community Centre this afternoon people came along for the second event in “Abingdon For All,” the Community Led Plan for the town, run by the Town Council.
There was a big map on which people could put green, red or yellow numbered stickers showing what they liked, disliked, and hoped for the town. Most of the stickers were clumped round the town centre.
People could also fill in more detailed surveys. There are online surveys anybody can fill in – if you did not manage to go to the event.
The Town Council were also looking for people to get involved in various ways to drive the project forward.
Outside the centre there were also people getting signatures for a petition.
The petition read “THE ABBEY HALL and GUILDHALL
1. We wish the Town Council to renovate the ABBEY HALL, as promised. We want the residue of the Vale grant to be invested to help fund a large town centre space to serve a growing population of 38,000 people. The Hall is needed for civic functions, for Abingdon’s many clubs and societies, and for activities for all ages. It should have disabled access to public rooms. A cinema space would be good.
Do not sell the Abbey Hall for development.
2. We need the Council to maintain and preserve the beautiful and historic GUILDHALL and its 18th century staircase intact for future generations.
The online petition is at http://chn.ge/2wkAH4V
I managed to get along to this today.
I am sorry that I had other commitments, I must get online and sign the petition and complete the questionnaires!
I’ve also uploaded the petition outlined above on to change.org so people can sign it on line.
The link is
http://chn.ge/2wkAH4V
Well done to Judith for setting the petition up
Daniel made a good point at this event, which was that most of the green, red, or yellow stickers (numbered and annotated on a separate sheets where comments could be written) were beyond the TC’s remit e.g. lots of dissatisfaction about the traffic along the Drayton Road approach to the double roundabouts at the end of Ock Street.
It’s good that the electorate can ‘vent’ at such events, but one would hope that the TC would strongly press such dissatisfaction with their political masters at Vale and County level..
It would be nice to see that ‘hope’ turned into a bit of passion and action from the TC and the town’s Vale members (if they’re not too worried about their party political prospects.
As newcomer says; didn’t get round to asking that… There are many things that the TC can do, and do do, and do do well, but aren’t they ‘playing with the big kids’ asking about traffic, planning etc? Unless there really *is* something they can do about those sorts of things? Maybe they can?
If so…as mentioned in a previous post, surely the answers are obvious (some of them at least). No more buildings/development until the current infrastructure is bought up to at the very least ‘adequate’ for what we have now. The TC to get Lodge Hill opened up. The TC to get the promised second River crossing as part of Abits built. To get Abits reversed – or the consultants who advised incorrectly to pay us back. Reopen the children’s centre….and a few other bits and pieces. Job done!
Who organised the session? It was good it was done…but…could it have been publicised better, on the assumption there was a desire for it to be as well attended as possible?
Glad I went, but I have a feeling we’ll be discussing the same issues in 5yrs time.
I looked at the survey questions and decided that I could not answer sensibly as the choices confused dissimilar items. It was like being asked whether I prefer vegetables to fruit, or whether I like lemons more than oranges.
The answer: it depends on the circumstances.
The biggest roads issue – safety – was not mentioned.
I have signed the Guildhall petition, but again it’s a bit of a “catch-all” which will identify dissatisfaction without suggesting feasible solutions.
Everything is easy from the side-lines. I imagine that our elected representatives find it just as confusing and frustrating as we do.
I have come to see the fact that we have 3 councils so no-one knows which is responsible for anything (plus county council Vs Highways Agency for different roads) as being an enormous problem.
Fully agree John – unitary authority is definitely the way forward. I think switching to a three tier system in 1974 had a bad impact on the town
I also struggled with the survey questions. I found it was poorly designed in a number of key areas: undefined concepts, selections which didn’t make it clear if you were for or against something…
It is good that the TC can have ‘quantitative’ data regarding the thoughts of Abingdonian’s, but I don’t see how these are applicable to areas where they have no jurisdiction or influence and I’m afraid they appear to have little influence on the key areas that impact our lives. Roll on unitary authority.
I was part of the South Abingdon Residents Association which also had a survey. The group worked very well as a local residents group and achieved a lot for the area, for instance solving problems such as litter and graffiti. However, it just became an excercise group for councellors and other organisations. In reality most decisions would have been out of residents hands, such as the new estate along the Drayton Road additing to traffic. Local residents have little or no influence.
are there any more plans for this event – to have more of them? two doesn’t seem very many (and not that well publicised)? I would have expected, perhaps…a sign outside? Or…balloons, or stickers, flyers, banners, you know…run-o-the-mill stuff that you employ to advertise an event…
So, it seems the housing numbers we need – or, more accurately the numbers we’ve been told swallow…have been over-egged by about 47%.
http://www.heraldseries.co.uk/news/15542195.Housing_numbers___Ridiculous__green_belt_plans_could_be_scrapped/#comments-anchor
So…is THIS sending our TC can now press The Veil on, as we don’t necessarily need ALL the development here after all?
I fear, Daniel, that The Vale will have agreed to lots of get-out/escape clauses for the developers, but none for themselves.
It could be like Ireland a decade ago … abandoned, half-built estates and, of course, no diamond interchange at Lodge Hill.
I have every confidence newcomer that the relevant field on the map had a yellow dot placed on it on Saturday – so this issue will be addressed imminently.
Re the earlier comments about the TC asking questions about things that are outside their remit. I dont think the exhibition made it very clear, but the end product of this exercise should be a “Community-Led Plan” – not a Town Council document. This will sadly not be legally binding (it would have been if they had gone for a Neighbourhood Plan), however it will be a clear statement of the wishes of the Abingdon people and Councils at all levels should take note of that. Also, the target date for completion is early 2019, just before the next round of Town and District Council elections (or Unitary Authority if progress is made on that). So it will give plenty of food for thought for voters making up their minds…
And yes, I agree that some of the questions are very poorly constructed – but I am sure most of us can make good use of the comments boxes!.
Hester … a Neighbourhood Plan would be a tad too much democracy for the TC.
what’s stopping us having a worthwhile, legally binding Neighbourhood plan, rather than a mere unenforceable “nice to have’s but no one really cares what you want we will do what we like” Community Plan?
I disagree on the focus petition.
What the town centre needs is to attract more locals who will spend their money there. Given the many comments on here about local businesses surviving, surely the only answer is offer the Guildhall to a commercial operation who will provide something the town doesn’t have (e.g. a commercially run cinema).
Whilst community space and groups are great, they are (unfortunately) attended by relatively few people, so do not pull people into town, and they do nothing to pay for the upkeep and running of the building.
Yes we should seek a deal that doesn’t just turn over the building to a developer for a quick profit (e.g. housing), but an agreement that provides investment and something that the town’s majority (key in my view) would make use of is surely a better solution for all.
Daniel, with a Democracy-Lite Community Plan only a few of the electorate have to consulted occasionally for politicians to claim they are fulfilling their remit.
Daniel.
The majority on the Town Council preferred a Community-led Plan to a Neighbourhood Plan. I would prefer the latter as it has at least some formal influence.
On the number of houses – yes – this backs up what many of us have been arguing since the over-inflated ‘SHMA’ figures were produced. These new figures should lead to the Vale halting their current planning process and starting again based on the new figures.