Call to order
A meeting of the Management Group of Hoylake Vision Community Planning Forum was held at Monte Carlo Restaurant on 13.01.22.
Attendees
Attendees: Nigel Blacow (NB), Mark Howard (MHo), Jon Caswell (JC), Maureen Hanson (MHa), Jon Morgan (JM), Bryony Parsons (BP)
Members not in attendance
Jade Wright (JW), Alex Woods (AW), Julian Priest (JP)
Approval of minutes
The minutes of the December meeting were approved.
Management Group Meeting Reports
- Locality Funding and arrangements for next consultation stage and Open Days / AGM event
MHo agreed to apply to Locality on behalf of the forum for the various costs, namely website portal re-opening, printing surveys, membership flyers, introductory booklets, display panels, hall hire etc. This would be in the region of £2k+. MHo would speak to the Post Office about whether survey forms could be returned there. AW was to contact St Lukes to explore availability dates for late April/early May. - AECOM Design Guide progress
NB and MHo had met with Chris Moore (CM) and agreed a wholesale restructuring of the document could be avoided by inclusion of an Executive Summary and simple chart to point people to different parts of the document, depending on their reason for accessing it. CM felt the language needed to be bolstered to be more definitive and clear (eg “must” rather than “may”; “will” rather than “should”), to minimise risk of incorrect ‘interpretation’ by developers and decision makers. MHo would feed back notes to Nick Beedie at AECOM and ask him to draft an ES. This would then be incorporated at the front of the document that along with other required changes to illustrations into the document ready for submission to LOCALITY for sign off asap. - Proposed council asset sell off (Library, golf course etc)
The Library was one of a number of local buildings recorded as an Asset of Community Value (ACV) by the council following a submission by Hoylake Vision in 2019 which was supported by an 18 month period of public consultation. It is not the role of the forum to ‘take on’ such projects but to raise awareness of the options for community groups to apply for funding and to bid to ‘take over’ the assets. MHa and NB would contact Julie Hunter to discuss the closure of the toilets at Meols Parade Gardens. MHa would find guidance from Locality for funding ACV bids as it was understood that significant funding is available for such activities, so community groups should be aware. Enquiries would be made about how the municipal golf club and eg Friends of Hoylake Library intend to respond so that we can offer guidance, advice and support if required. It was agreed that it was not the role of the forum to lobby the council on this issue but to support local groups in ensuring the buildings and assets remain in community use by helping to facilitate funding bids and open effective communications channels where appropriate.
Announcements
NONE
Date of next meeting 10 February 2022
