Agenda and minutes

Heworth Ward Committee - Monday, 2 November 2015 6.30 pm

Venue: St Wulstan's Church, Fossway, YO31 8SF

Contact: Claire Taylor

Items

No.

Item

6.30pm Drop In

Meet and talk to:

· Cllr’s Boyce, Funnell and Williams

· Claire Taylor, CYC Community Involvement Officer

· Partners and groups working in the ward

Tell us your priorities for the ward

Minutes:

Residents had an opportunity to speak informally to Councillor’s Boyce, Funnell and Williams, Claire Taylor, Amanda Gaines and representatives from local community groups.

7pm Formal Meeting - Welcome and Introductions

Minutes:

Cllr Christina Funnell (CF) welcomed everyone to the meeting and introduced her fellow ward Councillors, Barbara Boyce (BB) and Dafydd Williams (DW). CF explained that this meeting was a non political formal meeting of City of York Council (CYC) and that the minutes would be available on the CYC website or could be posted out on request.

Neighbourhood working and ward budgets

Hear more about the ward budget of £62,159 and how it can be used to meet local needs.

Minutes:

CF and DW said a new Ward Committee needed to be established and budgets decided in consultation with residents. DW gave a presentation on the new Neighbourhood Working model and the ward budgets.

Listening to Residents: Ward Committees: - this was a new approach to community engagement through working with local neighbourhoods and the establishment of revised ward committees.

The Council’s approach to neighbourhood working aimed to empower local residents and to support ward members so that they could:

· Work with local communities to develop local priorities and help deliver on these

· Help empower local communities and devolve more budgets to residents

Ward Committees:

What are Ward Committees and what do they do?

· tackle local issues in partnership with residents

· improve the Council’s accountability to residents

· provide opportunities to influence services

They can do this by:

· Talking to residents on issues affecting the ward and the city

· Prioritising local issues

· Agreeing how to allocate ward budgets

· Supporting local projects that help address ward priorities

· Working with communities to help inform what local services are needed

There are 21 Wards in York.

Meetings will take place up to four times a year with a formal meeting at the beginning of the financial year (Autumn 2015). Further meetings can be in other formats depending on the need of the ward e.g. walkabouts, stalls at fairs, drop-in, consultations etc. This means that a wider range of residents can engage.

Ward Teams

Ward Teams are led by Ward Councillors, ward-based partners will hold regular meetings to:

· Set priorities based on data, local intelligence

· Work on projects that address the ward priorities

· Liaise between ward partners (police, estate managers, voluntary groups, businesses, parish council)

· Supported by a ward co-ordinator

Devolved Budgets

These are additional budgets to wards in order to create a pot that wards can use flexibly to help to address their priorities and develop community initiatives which benefit local residents and reduce reliance on council services. They are made up of:

General Ward Budget £10,179 – this could be spent in two ways.

· Grants for funding projects from this fund should be made via an application form. They can be made from constituted groups and must show a benefit to the local community. Citywide organisations cannot apply to multiple wards

· Alternatively should a group or organisation want to commission a particular piece or work. Or both

Pride in York Fund (one off) £23,140 –this money is allocated to wards, based on current grounds maintenance spending and could be used to provide grants to partner, community and voluntary organisations to develop initiatives that benefit the community and help reduce the reliance on Council services.

Pride in York Fund (recurring) £13,572– this fund is to commission projects and initiatives that improve the local environment and street level issues in the ward. It could be spent on council services if the ward wished and is allocated to wards based on a per capita basis

Community Care Programme £5,089

· To support through community ... view the full minutes text for item 3.

York Public Health Team

Minutes:

Amanda Gaines (AG) updated residents on the work being undertaken in three wards, Heworth, Heworth Without and Strensall to look at improving health and wellbeing within these wards. She said she was interested in finding out from residents what the issues were in these wards e.g. mental wellbeing, trips and falls in order to identify priorities that would make a difference to people’s lives.

One area she was interested in was the provision of lunch clubs and reaching lonely and isolated people. She suggested that money could be available for volunteers to drive people to and from lunch clubs. She was not just interested in people’s physical wellbeing. AG said that there was a public health link on the Ward pages of the CYC website and she would be grateful if people would take the time to fill in the short questionnaire to help her team identify issues of concern to local residents. Paper copies of the questionnaire were also available from her if people preferred to fill them in this evening.

Planning Panel update and selections

An update on planning panel activity over the last year and re-selection of the panel.

Minutes:

Gareth Foster (GF), clerk of Heworth Planning Panel,updated residents on the work of the Planning Panel over the last year. Currently there were three members of the Planning Panel, GF, Dennis Shaw and Gavin Tulley. Planning Panels meet locally every 3-4 weeks depending on the level of local planning applications. The Planning Department send applications electronically by email and panel members look at them and comment under three categories, namely - Support, Do Not Object or We Object. The applications received were mainly house extensions and occasionally there may be a development.

Planning Panels are re-selected on an annual basis and the three current members were re-selected for the coming year. GF said that if any residents would like to join the Planning Panel information and Terms of Reference were available from Claire Taylor, Community Involvement Officer on 01904 551810 or by email at c.taylor@york.gov.uk.

Have Your Say

An opportunity to raise issues of local interest and concern.

Minutes:

No business discussed.

The next meeting date has not yet been agreed but it was expected to be early in the new year when progress will be reviewed on the ward budget and funding.