Havant to share in £9.6million for parks and open spaces
- Tue 6th Jul 2004
Community Board to be set up.
We have been selected alongside two other councils in the South East to share more than £9.6million over three years to support Liveability Fund pilot projects. Havant Borough, Medway Council and Spelthorne Borough Council will use the money to radically improve the state of its parks and public spaces.
Havant was selected from among 64 bids submitted by local authorities in the South East, and is among 27 Liveability Fund pilots around the country.Dawn Baxendale, the borough council’s Corporate Director, Community Group says, “We are delighted to be chosen as one of only three pilots in our region to be delivering the government’s new Liveability programme. With assistance from this programme we will be developing and implementing a public spaces design framework and delivering improvements to our key areas.
Community involvement will be vital in developing the framework itself and applying it to projects. We expect to have a major impact on establishing an identity for the borough.
We are looking to develop 6 community boards in the following areas:
• Hayling
• Emsworth
• Havant & Bedhampton
• Leigh Park
• Waterlooville,Purbrook & Stakes and
• Cowplain &Hart Plain
These boards will enable local people to influence the quality of life for their community and will consist of approximately 15 voting members who either live, learn or earn in the boards area. It is anticipated that membership will include at least five residents, representatives of the business, voluntary and community sectors and one local ward councillor.
The Council has established a public spaces development unit, aimed at bringing together some of the existing strategic and operational activities. This unit will help to establish links between service reforms/improvements and physical improvements so that money spent on the public realm results in sustainable improvements. For example, we propose:
• Integration and co-ordination of grounds maintenance, cleansing, small engineering works and vehicle maintenance operations under a single operations manager, coupled with establishment or piloting of an area or 'zoned' approach to service delivery to further facilitate co-ordination and ownership of the whole public space environment.
• Reform 'out of hours' staffing of parks and open spaces.
• Reform of playground provision, inspection and maintenance regimes.
The Liveability Fund will provide us with capital resources to achieve improvements in key areas including gateways to the borough, town centres and important parks. The programme also hopes to achieve increased promotion and infrastructure improvements, to expand private and corporate investment in such things as sponsorship of gateway landmarks, traffic islands, floral displays, Britain in Bloom, Green Flag Awards etc.
For further details and a full copy of the council’s proposals please contact Dawn Baxendale, Corporate Director, Community Group on (023) 9244 6400.
A public open meeting will be held on Tuesday the 20th July 2004 at 7.30pm in the Conservative Hut, Elm Grove Hayling Island.
Andy Lenaghan the Local Councillor in charge at ground level of this project would like to invite people who would be representative of typical groups in our community. He would like to see apart from residents, representation from the Residents Association, tourist groups, business groups, conservationists, young peoples' groups, in fact anybody with an interest in shaping the communities future both in Hayling and the Borough in general.
Andy Lenaghan said “It will be impossible for me to anticipate everybody who will be interested, although I will be contacting some who I know will be, but please contact me or just turn up on the night to start this community board rolling. I want to form a permanent Community Board that will go beyond the Livability programme and link in with the Local Strategic Partnership and have more input into shaping Hayling's future.
Please contact Andy on 02392 467469 or andy.Lenaghan@btopenworld.com
I will also require an experienced minute taker so if you have skills in this direction please do contact me also.
By forum user, Bruce_Bennett
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