COMMUNITY AND LEISURE.
2ND ROUND PUBLIC CONSULTATION.
19:30, WEDNESDAY 18TH MAY 2016
MILFORD SOCIAL CLUB,
5 CHEVIN ROAD, (OPPOSITE THE SCHOOL)
MILFORD,
DE56 0QH
FACILITATOR: JOHN DEVINE
Reporting feedback
Introduction
Neighbourhood Plan
4 Belper team has taken feedback from our first consultations which took place
around Belper Parish earlier this year. While the number of feedback forms
returned was disappointingly small, those forms we did get were very
interesting and some very good points were raised.
This information we
have been able to use to produce an outline as to which direction our Plan
should take within each of the following categories.
Plan for Belper –
Consultation 1 – Community and Leisure Jan 2016
Key points –
1. Belper is inspirational,
open access countryside
2. There are many varying
communities of interest, demonstrating a lively community spirit and social
life, but perhaps there needs to be more communication about what’s going on,
which could take the form of more co-ordinated parish ‘notice boards’ (real and
virtual)
3. Is the parish sufficiently
served by the physical community hub buildings it needs? Should there be an audit of those existing,
and does there need to be another central, social ‘drop-in’ place? There should be a central directory of places
4. The town really comes
alive in several key weeks – the DVMWHS weeks, Arts Festival, Food Festival
5. Are people falling through
the ‘gaps’ in community and social life?
How can that be best addressed?
6. Is adult education too
qualifications oriented now?
7.
There
should be improvements to the physical leisure offer – improvements to the
relationship between stakeholders in Belper Leisure Centre
8. There are concerns about
limitations on places at Pottery School
9. There could be more formal
FE College links to the town
10.
Provision of facilities for teenagers is not
good. Perhaps emphasise more
intergenerational spaces?
11. Should there be drop-in
arrangements at health centres? (there is casualty coverage by Ripley GPs in
their area, for example)
12. The location of Babington
Hospital and access is good, and will be a loss
13. Access to Belper Meadows and the Nailers needs
to be improved.
COMMUNITY
Community rooms are something that
Belper is fortunate to have a good supply of.
The old schools, with their
various sizes of rooms, lend themselves to community use: the Strutts Centre on
Derby Road; the Adult Education Centre, on Holbrook Road (is it available to
the general public?); the Fleet Arts Centre, on The Fleet; No28, on the Market
Square; the community centre off Bridge Street, near the library; the Social
Club at Milford. The many sports clubs
in the town offer room hire for parties and events. The leisure centre has rooms available for
hire to the general public. There are
also a good number of public houses within the Belper area with rooms and
facilities available for public hire.
However, there is scope for additional public space:-
There is no community centre on
the Parks Estate.
There was a lot of support for a
community hub building in the centre of Belper where events and businesses
could be advertised, with a café and social drop-in centre; perhaps even a
meeting place for the town council with space for the public to observe.
The old Thornton’s building on
Derwent Street would lend itself, in part, to
an easy conversion to community
leisure activities. It already has a stage and
could be the basis of a community
centre on the ground floor of value to all age groups.
The Tea Rooms at the River
Gardens, when eventually built and with sufficient thought, could also become a
community space.
Community
engagement – volunteer allotments; veg. boxes. At the moment we have a handful of people who
seem to do the bulk of the organising. How
can we safeguard and build on their skills and enthusiasm for the future ? What space is available for community use ?
Who wants what and where ? There is much information required from the
community.
Access to public
buildings for both the
elderly/infirm and the disabled of the parish.
Work has already been done in this regard by Accessible Belper, but
there is more to do.
Should we be
setting up some facility/scheme for the acquisition of local pubs as Community
Assets should they fail as
public houses ? Such premises would be ideally placed for alternative,
community uses.
LEISURE
Leisure
facilities.
Some have said that
they would like a modern swimming pool with flumes, waves, etc. as well as the
usual swimming pools. Does this have
community support? Would keep-fit and
sports facilities also need to be included?
Would it be better to have one large development or separate smaller
developments? Issues such as
space/parking/congestion/access would need to be taken into consideration.
Alternatively, should
we be looking at extending/redeveloping the existing Leisure Centre ? Issues such as school priority use/funding
and access to the east side of Belper would need to be taken into
consideration.
Or should we
consider a Leisure Centre/Leisure Facility in the south of the parish ? There would still be the same issues of
space/parking/congestion/access as for a development in Belper Town.
What Community
and/or Leisure Facility is required at Parks Estate area of Belper Parish ?
The Blue Box Scheme
provides Multi Sports and Educational Workshops to the youth of Belper Parks. Their management committee is looking at
alternative/increase of use and looking at volunteer support in order to do
this. The community need to get
involved.
The creation of
Multi User Games Courts is
suggested for the Parks Community. They provide safe, well lit facility for
casual use sports by the youth of Parks. What about Milford ?
Sommerlea Leisure
Centre already has one as have many others. These are usually owned by AVBC. Sporting Futures run sessions there.
Entertainment
venues;
We have numerous music venues
around the town (mostly pub based): the Queens Head, the Old Kings Head, the
George & Dragon, the Lion Hotel, and many more – some akin to community
centres. Should we use the
Neighbourhood Plan to safeguard our pubs from closure by protecting them as ‘Community Assets’
? This would be a big undertaking and
would need ongoing community involvement, but could be a boon to the more rural
parts of the Belper neighbourhood area.
Town Notice
Boards.
A suggestion has
been made about having electronic notice boards throughout the parish, which
could be updated from the town council offices.
There is also the possibility to have screens showing the same
information in pubs, cafes and shops where there is a willingness to host
them. There would be issues such as
cost/installation/security/maintenance.
Costs could be
offset by selling advertising space on the system to local businesses and
national organisations (think newspaper ads).
Are you in favour of these ideas or not?
Blue corridors – picnic areas or seating ?
Are picnic areas as
valued as they once were ? Would they be used by families or prove a lure for
antisocial behaviour ? Would such areas
be better placed away from the 'Blue Corridor' and closer to the edge of town
i.e. the bottom end of Derwent Street and elsewhere along the bottom of the
slope at the edge of the Meadows ? Perhaps
better provision of seating along the 'Blue Corridor' might prove more popular
whilst still providing many of the benefits of picnic areas ? We need to know which option the community
favours.
EDUCATION
Concern has been
expressed that schools provision within the neighbourhood plan area is at capacity. Also, that there is insufficient tertiary
education provision. The views of
professionals are being sought but we welcome any information, suggestions or
ideas that anyone has.
YOUTH/ELDERLY/DISABLED
There is a good offer of
structured sports within the area for young people, but
there is very little that caters
for ad hoc and flexible needs. It has
been suggested that there needs to be more provision for areas to kick a
football about or just to congregate.
We have been told there is a need
for further youth facilities at the Whitmore end of Belper and at Milford.
Do you agree? Please let us know so we can get a consensus.
Should we have shared
leisure/meeting facilities for young and old ? The old Thorntons site could possibly lend
itself to redevelopment of this nature. A
good sized space with easy access and parking in which to hold music, performing
arts and other, larger scale, events. The needs of the younger and older
generations, when it comes to entertainment, are remarkably similar when it
comes to venues.
For the elderly, inform and those
with disabilities: can we further improve Belper town centre by focussing on
ease of access to all premises? What about the cost ? A number of shops already make an effort to
support those customers with additional needs, but many don’t shout about it.
For instance, did you know that
we have retail staff in the town
that can sign and say hello to those with hearing
impairments. It will be useful to
tie in such accessibility considerations to future planning and
development in and around Belper.
HEALTH
The NHS South Derbyshire Clinical
Commissioning Group produced a document last year entitled:
Joined Up
Care in Belper
Healthcare
Service Review for the town and surrounding areas
Interim Report –October 2015.
This document was
followed by:
Joined Up Care in Belper
Pre-engagement
Report.
This is an 8 page
report which sets out the findings of the survey conducted at this time.
In total 84
questionnaires were completed. It is
expected that there will be further consultations taking place in the summer
and that will be an opportunity for more Belper people to take part and make
their views known. The link to access this document also is:
SPORTS
There is
comparatively little opportunity for casual or spontaneous sports
other
than fishing or ball games on green open spaces. Multi User Games Courts would certainly help
to redress this imbalance. Perhaps
aiming for at least 4 – one by the skate park, one on Parks Estate and one at
the Whitemoor Estate and one at Milford
?
COMMUNITY & LEISURE FEEDBACK
COMMUNITY:
LEISURE:
EDUCATION:
YOUTH/ELDERLY/DISABLED:
HEALTH:
SPORTS:
JULY PRESS RELEASE
