Minutes of the Hanover & Elm Grove Coalition meeting
Tuesday 12th June– 6:30pm Phoenix Gallery Brighton
- Welcome, introductions & apologies
Tom Goodridge (BHCC); Cllr David Gibson; Sarah McCarthy (Phoenix Community Association); Alexia Lazou & Jill Peters (Hanover Community Association); Sarah Davies (Phoenix Gallery Brighton); Tim Read (BHCC); Amy Allison (Trust for Developing Communities); Emma Reeves (trust for Developing Communities); Ian Macintyre and Paul Norman (Hanover Action); David Hearn (HEGLAT); Jayne Brown (Queen’s Park Community Association)
Apologies: Simon Bannister (BHCC); Cllr Emma Daniel; Sam Warren (BHCC); Denise Browning (May Rd Resident); Becky Nash (Housing Services, University of Sussex)
- Appointment of temporary chair & minute taker
Tom Goodridge (Chair) and David Hearn (minute taker)
- Last meeting – overview of minutes & emerging actions
- Phoenix Community Event – Key themes that emerged – condition of ball cage; support for a mural and art project; events inside and outside of the Phoenix Centre. Actions arising; A Community Fun day to be planned for 15th A phoenix Residents Association is in the process of being established. A meeting with Hyde Housing is to take place in response to the matters arising from the Resident’s Survey.
- Community event at The Edge – well attended (20-25 people) and drew in a number of new people; people also phoning in for information and to report issues; good range of topics raised and actions arising including beautifying the estate; environmental improvements.
Restorative Approaches within Hanover & Elm Grove – Tim Read (TR) BHCC
Tim provided an update on the work to date across the three key areas:
- Capacity Building – supporting groups to thrive (May Rd) and communities of interest.
- Making RJ approaches relevant and visible – through awareness and training
- Practical Improvement – using Youth Offending Team reparation – related to their offence. Brighton Bike hub and Hanover Action are obvious options
Points of Discussion and Further Action- Phoenix Estate residents to be included for capacity building with TR checking on the use of funds to cover child care to enable residents to take part. Phoenix Gallery (Sarah0 ae also interested in being involved and Wellington Road residents group also identified as a possible other group for TR to follow up.
TR confirmed that those young people identified through the Youth Offending Team (YOT) are able to gain a recognised qualification ‘AQA’ as well as being sign posted to other agencies through the YOT. TR to contact Clare Burchill (Trust for Development) as useful source of information for the project and with the wider links to the Crew Club (East Brighton).
Action. TR to update the group via the Chair (Tom) by the end of the month with a further progress update to be provided at the next Community Coalition meeting.
- Agreement on Terms of Reference – it was agreed that the item will be deferred until the next meeting
- CIL and Constitution
Tom provided a background as to how developer funds can be collected by the Council and distributed towards local areas and local groups to carry out work programmes. Tom explained that two options are available Section 106 – a system for collecting develop funds and making available for specific projects. Tom explained that the criteria for Section 106 awards is not particularly transparent and obtaining funding through this route is often arbitrary and difficult.
The CIL (Community Infrastructure Levy) is the other route. This enables developer contributions to be spread across the city. Groups/ Organisations designated as Neighbourhood Areas can qualify for 15% of the funds available whilst those designated at Neighbourhood Panel can receive 25% of the funds available.
Tom explained that it may be useful for the Coalition to think about what type of structure it may wish to adopt in order to make itself eligible for CIL funding.
Action. As a result of the information, it was agreed that the current draft Constitution be refined to take account of the CIL criteria. A revised version will be distributed in advance of the next meeting.
- Updates from Neighbourhood Action Plan (NAP) working groups
Tom circulated copies of the East Brighton NAP for information. The Council would like to replicate the format in the four NAP pilot areas. Tom went through the layout of the East Brighton plan to show how the plan could be seen in context of the area and the issues it faced. The sections included stories; demographics of the area; and a table of actions. It was expected that actions covering the themes and their progress would be updated regularly so that residents could monitor and understand the progress being made.
The group felt the layout worked very well and had no issues adopting the format. Sarah (Phoenix) volunteered to consider using Phoenix Artists to help create relevant images for the HEG documents.
Action: Table of themes to be updated to include a What have we done? column.
- NAP – next steps
Latest versions of the 6 key themes were circulated including updates to Theme 1 – Refuse and Recycling; Theme 3 The Environment and Theme 4 Neighbourliness and Community Spirit.
Action; Members of the group to confirm final details of the themes with Tom, prior to the date of the next meeting, and which key partner agencies they would like to engage with to help deliver the actions set out in each of their themes. Tom will then arrange to contact the partner agencies with a view to arranging further discussions culminating in a “Sign Up” event/process.
- AOB
Communication Strategy – Ian Macintyre raised the issue of whether the plan need to be support by an overarching Communications Strategy to promote the and raise awareness of the plan and the work being done. Ian suggested if this could be supported through a user-friendly mapping system that helps residents report, find and retrieve information that would be useful. Tom explained that the Council is currently re-designing its website and is working with the digital team to improve and integrate information streams.
Magpie Recycling – Ian Macintyre raised the question as to whether there was general appetite to run a pilot project to use the Magpie Recycling service more in areas of the ward for instance on the Phoenix Estate.
Meeting papers – Paul Norman requested that the meeting papers be sent out 7 days before the meting to allow people to read and prepare for the meeting.
Zocalo – Cllr. Gibson reminded the group of the pending date for the Bloomin’ Hanover and Zocalo event taking place Friday 22nd June from 5.30pm onwards. He encouraged the group to get involved and spread the word.
- Date of Next Meeting
11 July 2018 Venue TBC
COMMUNITIES FORUM 