As the article by John Kennedy points out, a Steering Committee was set up in March of this year tasked with the problem of identifying and defining the future development of the Parish with the theme
A Chance to Shape our Future
The Steering Committee is asking local interest groups involved in sport, amenity, leisure, education as well as local businesses for their views and proposals. The consultation period of this first phase will be until 15th October. It is seen as a means of augmenting the matters already identified by the Working Groups and will form the basis of a draft document outlining issues and proposals. This draft will then be then be shown to the Parish and as many parishioners as possible will be approached individually for their views and further input. The District Council is at present equivocal as to the date when the Parish Plan is required in order for it to be considered as part of Special Planning Guidance for the Local Development Document. The Steering Group, however, is working to a completion date of the end of March. The acceptance of the Parish Plan by the District Council is by no means a foregone conclusion so a period for serious consultation must be built in to the calendar.
You may be unsure about what opinions you are expected to have about the future of our Parish, so in view of this, I decided to contact a man named Jim Watson who master-minded the Village Plan for Wheatley (near Oxford). I thought you might be interested in the results of that meeting as a basis for your own input to our Parish Plan.
The Wheatley team identified the following areas for attention:
- A Farmer’s Market in the Village (our Green?)
- More activities and information access for the elderly.
- Improved footpaths and cycle paths.
- More street cleaning.
- More car parking facilities.
- Improvements to paving.
- More activities for youth, places for youths to “hang out” and more access to sports fields.
- Improve recreation grounds for young children.
- Buses from London and airports to stop occasionally at Wheatley.
What do you think a comparable list for our Parish would look like?
The Wheatley Plan was based on a complete appraisal of their current “assets” and how they spent their money and time. Some instances are:
- Age analysis of inhabitants. Useful to predict schooling and elderly people’s needs.
- Why people chose to live there.
- Housing issues - e.g. for young people and not in Green Belt.
- Caring for each other in need.
- Re-cycling and energy efficiency of homes.
- Adult education and how many attend.
- Use of Internet and a village site.
- Public Transport utilisation.
- Traffic problems.
- Church.
There were fascinating statistics on all these issues and many more, and it is safe to say that Wheatley really does know itself. Does Taplow? Hopefully our existing Community Plan will provide an adequate baseline to work from.
Wheatley, which is much larger than us, issued three types of questionnaires, targeted at different groups. Individual, household and youth views. A team of about 100 volunteers distributed these questionnaires, and, where necessary, provided help in completing them. About 5,600 were issued, and a return rate of 60% was achieved, which was high enough to be statistically significant.
Wheatley was supported in all this work by the Parish and District Councils, the Countryside Agency (who gave them a grant of £4,000), and another group called Oxford Rural Community Council (our equivalent is called Buckinghamshire Community Action). The whole operation is also supported by an outfit called The South East Economic Development Agency - but since there are less than 3,000 of us no support can be expected from that quarter. Also the money supply has dried up from the Countryside Agency, so other sources are being looked at.
The draft plan for Wheatley is illuminating. Although we should not assume a one-to-one mapping onto Taplow’s future needs (if only because of the difference in scale) there are many parallels for you to consider. For instance:
PLANS AND NEEDS FOR: Under 11s Youth activities, the Elderly, Village Services, Environment, Litter, garbage, housing (design, position etc.), Green belt, Security (lighting, police presence, neighbourhood Watch etc.) Car parking, pavements, public transport Footpath and Cycle ways Sports activities and facilities
Under each of these headings there is considerable detail relevant only to Wheatley of course but one can easily see these apply to Taplow; some obvious candidates are:
Special problems of the Bath Road commercial divide The riverside and Jubilee river maintenance and safety Riverside users needs What might be done with the Skindles site Tree and wildlife conservation The impact of Cliveden and Dropmore developments etc.
Wheatley may seem far away up in Oxfordshire but, in fact, once the Regionalisation programme is in place then Wheatley becomes a neighbour and subject to the same planning constraints, opportunities and abuses as Taplow since we’ll all be part of the same South East Region. Planning for the whole of this Region, which extends from Kent to Oxfordshire, will be managed by people from Guildford with no local knowledge. The only chance we have of making sure that Taplow’s special needs are addressed with some understanding by this remote bureaucracy is to ensure that our needs are embedded in the new version of the Local Plan which will become their Bible. Taplow will then become a place with a defined identity rather than just a name on a map. The South East Region will be one vast planning zone and we must not get ourselves lost in this place.
Anyway, why wait to be contacted? Why not get in touch with the Steering Group directly? If you have something to say about Taplow’s future write to:
The Taplow Parish Plan Steering Group
c/o The Clerk, Taplow Parish Council
The Village Centre
High Street
Taplow
SL6 0EX
