Meeting documents

The Future for the Somer Valley : the Vision thing.

This statement is by way of a complaint about the utterly bogus consultation, or rather the failure to consult about The Vision Bath and North East Somerset and in particular `The Vision for the Somer Valley'.

I would like to know how many cabinet members have heard of this document and the process which lies behind it. Certainly their colleagues on The Somer Valley Partnership had not heard of it even though the information leaflet says

`The Somer Valley Partnership... will make a significant contribution to developing its Future Vision. ` Neither has any other councillor, school governor or activist I have asked, with the exception of Deborah Porter, who alerted me to the process. We are told `The Proposals in the Vision will be a key consideration in drawing up new planning policies in the Core Strategy ' - but how can we make proposals when we have not heard of `The Vision'?

My constituents have put their energies into responding to the Core Strategy - it is no excuse to say that the Vision was launched two days later and we should have spotted it. How was it launched? Where and when? Some people have heard of "The Brighter Futures Community Plan' but do not know how to access it or contribute.

75% of my constituents have no internet access - but even those that do, probably do not spend much time trawling the BANES website for consultation exercises. Schools play a vital role in community development - Miss Gethridge would say, in economic development - but my colleagues at St Nicholas School and Trinity Primary School had not heard of it.

How to have your say - no information was available anywhere in any of the listed `outlets' - but the helpful ladies in Trimbridge House -not listed as an information point- did know. And when I read the document the information on which it was based was out of date, derogatory to Radstock and the questions inviting a response fatuous `nonne `questions...

Presumably this is what happens when the Major Projects Department is asked to organize a consultation exercise outside their usual remit, instead of the Planning Policy Unit who do have contact details for Radstock organizations.

Unlike the Local Plan this is not a statutory process - but it ought to be against the law to claim to conduct a consultation exercise and then leave out most of N.E.Somerset

Cllr Eleanor Jackson. Statement to Cabinet 6 February 2008