Updates from November - Consultations & heritage buildings

The town council recently hired a consultant to look through all the work that has been done on the Neighbourhood Plan so far to help give us pointers on what to do next. Most of November's meeting was spent going through that critique and forming a plan of our next steps.

We have roughly £8000 of budget currently, and in light of the advice we've been given we're going to use a chunk of that to hire a consultant to write up a draft Neighbourhood Plan for us. We're at a stage now where we have a great deal of information recorded and evidenced, and it's time it was drawn together by a planning professional for us. Once that has been done we'll be in a good position to look at filling in any gaps.

Thinking about how we work

We're also still thinking about the structure of our committee. We're very keen to see more residents holding committee positions or being a joint-chair of the Neighbourhood Plan. This is something we'll be focusing on again in our next meeting, and how we can support sustainable and effective work on the Neighbourhood Plan by all our volunteers.

Added to the pot - heritage buildings & housing mix

We made a start on discussing the heritage buildings of Totton and Eling that we'd like to list and include in our Neighbourhood Plan. We also had a discussion about what we can say more generally about housing across Totton and Eling. We talked about how one of our great strengths as a town is how much diversity we encompass, and how we'd like a housing mix in the future that continues to reflect that and to allow that diversity to continue and thrive.

Coming up - discussions for our next agenda

In our next meeting (or two) we will be discussing

• Heritage buildings in Totton and Eling that we'd like to see protected

• Envisaging policy ideas (i.e. campaign to promote cycling)

• How climate change will affect Totton and Eling

Our next meeting will be on Tuesday 4th January at 7pm. We are still sticking with zoom meetings for now, as we're finding them more accessible and it allows us to be flexible with group size. If you're not on our mailing list already contact us and we'll make sure you receive the zoom invitation!

Updates from September

There has been a lot of activity going on behind the scenes lately, with members of the Neighbourhood Plan team having meetings with New Forest District Council, Hampshire Highways, and Totton and Eling Town Council.

One of the biggest takeaways from September's Neighbourhood Plan meeting was the sense that the work of the Neighbourhood Plan group is proving more and more valuable to Council officers, and they know to talk to us if they want to consult residents. You can find the full minutes/transcript of the meeting here.

As of the time of writing this blog, we have another presentation to give to the Full Council of Totton and Eling Town Council. Any residents who are interested in hearing our full presentation can go to the Palm Room of Totton and Eling Community Centre at 7pm on Wednesday 29th September. As well as giving an update to our town councillors there will also be a discussion about the future of the Neighbourhood Plan group, and the support we need to continue. You can view the Agenda/minutes of the Full Council meeting here when they become available.

New Chair of the Neighbourhood Plan Group

Our last announcement is that our current chair Caroline Rackham will be stepping down. Caroline has done a fantastic job at steering the Neighbourhood Plan group over the last 2 and a half years, and we're very pleased that while she has decided it's the right time for her to step down as chair that she will remain an active member of the committee.

Are you interested in standing for Chair of the Neighbourhood Plan group? If you have any questions please get in touch with Caroline who will be happy to speak with you. The position is open to any interested residents. Candidates will be invited to speak to the group at the next Neighbourhood plan meeting, before the committee votes in the new chair.

July's Consultation Event

On the 31st July we held our first in-person consultation event since the start of the pandemic. The event was a big success, with more than 40 people coming to speak with us and join in our activities to get people thinking about the future of Totton. Special thanks to Richard Lewis for designing the consultation poster for us, and to all the committee members who helped to spread the word.

Collecting your views makes a huge difference to our work, often providing us with new ideas or giving us a better sense of what people like or feel about various options and proposals. This is all data that we can collate and present as part of the Neighbourhood Plan, and also information that we can feed to the Town Council, District Council and County Council.

Thanks to everyone that came along in July. We'll be running more in-person events over the next year. If you'd like to be the first to know when the next event will be do join the Neighbourhood Plan mailing list by getting in contact with us.