Weekly digest: Jul 28th

Hello again

After a short summer recess, albeit being busy in our Area, the digest resumes normal service with updates on current activities. And we’re in another period where there’s a lot to report on, so…….

  1. Tesco Toton Fete
    • We had a great time last Saturday on Manor Park. Weather was v hot and sunny, but there was a good turnout. Lots of people took the time to visit us and give us their views on the latest ideas from HS2 as well as their thoughts on some outline ideas we have for the Barracks
    • We registered a further 25 people with the Forum who will now be receiving these weekly ramblings. I’ve done a quick summary of our numbers and we now have:
      • Total people registered with Forum: 804
      • Number of members (live/work in Area): 720
      • Number receiving weekly digest: 699
      • Overall, numbers are steadily increasing & it’s great to have so many stay in touch via the digests. I can’t wait to break the 1,000 mark!
    • A further positive outcome from the fete was that Toton Churches has kindly shared the results of their ‘Listening to you…’ questionnaire undertaken on the day. A number of the issues captured resonate with our own findings such as: traffic generally; speeding on Swiney Way; poor public transport (no easy link to Long Eaton) etc. It is good to feed these issues into our Neighbourhood Plan
  2. Local Plan Part 2: the review (part 1)
    • I promised a couple of weeks ago to provide an update on the Plan once we had chance to review it. We’ve now done that and overall, we are pretty pleased with the results
    • It is clear the council listened to and acted on a number of our representations made last autumn after the series of consultations we held in the area. In particular the council have now included in the Barracks policy:
      • A key requirement to ‘facilitate’ a north/south road to link to the Tram Park through the top of the site. This is a major win for the Forum as we were the first to raise this matter as an essential improvement to the area.
      • Another key requirement is to ensure there is a green corridor around the northern & eastern part of the site that links to the playing field at the south east. Another significant win for us as it takes our idea to create a ‘horse shoe green corridor’ that will link up with Toton Fields Local Nature Reserve
      • Developers must look to retain and re-use existing buildings where possible. This will help protect the heritage assets on the site
      • An assurance that the site must be treated as ‘one entity’ – which means developers will not be allowed to parcel up chunks of land and develop them independently of each other.
    • Regarding the land around the HS2 station, the council have incorporated (as a Key Requirement) our ideas to develop a ‘significant [green] corridor in the area’ along the southern boundary. We had asked for a ’50 metre’ wide corridor so we are a little disappointed they were unable to commit to a definitive width. Nevertheless, this is a welcome improvement to previous wording and we can still present our case for 50 meters during the examination process.
    • I’ll hold off comments on the rest of Plan until next week to avoid overload….
  3. Broxtowe Lotto – coming your way in the next couple of weeks!
    • Yes, the Steering Group is always looking for ways to raise cash to help fund our activities and so we are pleased to be one of the first to sign up to this scheme launched by Broxtowe Council a couple of weeks ago
    • Basically, it works on the basis of customers signing up for 1 (or more!) weekly tickets costing a £1 each. For that you’ll get 6 numbers that are entered into the draw each week. You’ll win the 1st prize of £25,000 if all your 6 numbers are drawn in the correct order. Lesser prizes are based on 5, 4, 3, or 2 number matches in the correct order
    • For our part the important bit is that when customers sign up for their ticket(s), they can choose a ‘good cause’ they wish to support. Each ‘good cause’ chosen will directly receive 50p out of every £1 ticket purchased
    • So, naturally, the CTTC Forum has registered with the scheme as a ‘good cause’. This means if 100 people selected the Forum as their ‘good cause’, we would receive £50! And if these people regularly played the Lotto (and the expectation is for people to sign up on a regular basis via Direct Debit) then that would be a windfall of £2,500 for the year!
    • I’ll come back to this again in a couple of weeks (and again after that no doubt!) as we do believe this is a simple & effective way for our supporters to help fund the activities we need to undertake to develop a strong and credible Plan for our Area.
    • Please have a think and see if you are willing to help in this way. Here is a link to more details of the scheme on the council’s website. And here’s a link to the actual Lotto site, although you cannot buy tickets yet.
  4. And finally……
    • Heritage Assessment report – entering the home straight! We are holding a workshop with our consultants (Aecom) in a couple of weeks to tell them about the important assets we have in our Area. Aecom have undertaken a number of site visits so are well on the way to finalising their report to us. We will be flagging up to them our key assets, but if there is anything you’d like us to raise with them, now is the time to let us know (via a comment online).
    • HS2 Strategy Board. We attended the latest Board meeting last Monday. They have now finalised plans for the Toton Delivery Board – both terms of reference and proposed membership. At this stage, the Forum hasn’t been nominated to sit on the Delivery Board. However, we have been invited to write to the Strategy Board chair/vice-chair to argue our case that we should be a member. More on this in future editions.

I think that is more than enough for this week. More next week with further feedback on the Local Plan, plus updates on current funding applications and details of our workplan for the next quarter. Stayed tuned!

Kind regards
Graham

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2 Responses to Weekly digest: Jul 28th

  1. CTTC Graham says:

    Hello Graham

    Thanks for the latest update.

    I was very pleased to read that the council have agreed to the forums recommendation to have a North/ South road through the barracks site to link with the tram and thus alleviate some of the traffic problems from Stapleford Lane.
    Great stuff!!!
    Best wishes and thanks for all you do at the forum on our behalf.
    Gill and David

    • CTTC Graham says:

      Hi
      Many thanks for your note and ongoing support. It’s good to know we are still on the right track.

      As you noted, we are very pleased the council have built in to the Local Plan our view that a north/south link through the Barracks is essential to relieve pressure on Stapleford Lane. Unfortunately, the council haven’t gone so far as to insist the road is built – rather to ‘facilitate’ the road by making sure developers don’t build in the way of the road. So not quite a cast iron guarantee, but still a big step forward and – as a result – we are reasonably confident this road will be built at some stage.

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