Weekly digest: Sept 15th

Hello everyone

Yesss!  I’ve managed to get back on track and post this week’s edition on Saturday. Which means you’ll receive it in your inbox 1st thing on Sunday morning. Sometimes it’s the little ‘wins’ that gives me as much pleasure as the bigger wins that come our way. And this week, we have another huge win to report….

  1. Application to Locality has been approved!
    • I reported a month ago (Aug 18th) that we applied to Locality for a grant of £7,000 to fund some master planning work
    • I’m pleased to report that it has been approved. We are currently going through standard due diligence process, but we expect to receive the funds in our bank account in the next 10 days
    • Next step is to produce a brief detailing the specific work packages to be undertaken. The aim, as you’ll recall, is to produce a series of visuals to illustrate some key ideas we need to build into our Plan. These will include possible street layouts, housing designs, the ‘plaza’ concept we’d like to see to generate a village-centre feel on the Barracks
    • We’re also keen to explore road layout options at Toton Lane / Bardills island to see how our idea for a major road up through the Barracks could be merged within an overall scheme to provide access to HS2 station
    • We’d like to have illustrations ready for our next AGM early in the New Year. However, until we formally commission the work, we can’t be certain when we’ll have something to share with you.
  2. HS2 Hub Station: community consultation coming your way
    • HS2 Ltd have been in touch to explain they are planning to undertake in-depth community consultation relating to the Hub Station in our area in a few weeks.
    • They have asked us to be involved in the activity and we are currently working on suitable dates to meet up to discuss how we can help in more detail
    • At this stage we’re not sure when consultation will take place. It is likely to be late Oct/early Nov but expect more news about this in the coming weeks.
  3. Is there an accountant in the house?
    • We need some help, please. At our last AGM we appointed one of our members to undertake an audit of our financial accounts. However, I’ve received a letter this week informing me that, unfortunately, he is now unable to undertake this task.
    • So, is anyone willing to stick their hand up and help the Forum in this matter? The workload is minimal. Our turnover will be under £15k and comprise income of grants/donations to fund some pretty predictable expense items – the sort needed to consult, research, and promote/publicise our Plan.
    • Ideally, we would like another Forum member/friend to step forward and be willing to audit the accounts on a pro-bono basis. Am I being overly optimistic?
    • Here is a link to last year’s accounts to give an idea of the scale of the task. As can be seen, it is all pretty simple and straight forward.
  4. And finally……
    • …. Nope, sorry, no time for closing snippets this week. Not if I’m going to post this edition today (Saturday)!

More next week

Kind regards
Graham

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